















♦ 


Fighting Blood 

W' 

SZtyty 

By 

H. G. Witwer 

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Author of “The Leather Pushers/’ etc. 




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G.P.Putnam’s Sons 

T^ewYork & London 

3Q[)e Knickerbocker P res si 

1923 


Copyright, 1923 

by 

H. C. Witwer 


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Made in the United States of America 

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MAR 27’23 


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Cl A698772 


Dedicated 

to 

DR. HARRY WATSON MARTIN 

MY FRIEND 

H. C. W. 

















CONTENTS 


> 4 




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/ 



PAGE 

ROUND ONE 

A Punch—and Judy. 3 

ROUND TWO 

The Knight in Gale. 35 

ROUND THREE 

“Six-Second Smith”. 69 

ROUND FOUR 

Two Stones with One Bird .... 103 

ROUND FIVE 

“Dieu et Mon Droit!”. 138 

ROUND SIX 

The Call of the Wild. 174 

ROUND SEVEN 

The Knight that Failed. 201 

ROUND EIGHT 

Christopher of Columbus.229 


V 


VI 


CONTENTS 


ROUND NINE 
A Grim Fairy Tale 

ROUND TEN 

The End of a Perfect Fray 

ROUND ELEVEN 

When Gale and Hurricane Meet 

ROUND TWELVE 


PAGE 

. 260 


. 291 


• 3 21 


Crime, Women and Long 


• 353 


FIGHTING BLOOD 



FIGHTING BLOOD 


ROUND ONE 

A PUNCH-AND JUDY 

I remember the first look I took at the cubbyhole on 
the top floor just about wound matters up. The walls 
is papered terrible red, or maybe this rabbit hutch kind 
of blushed when the landlady called it a room. A 
faded rag carpet on the floor, a white-enameled cot 
like you get in the hospital, a chair not even fit to use as 
a weapon, a bureau which I bet come off the Ark, a 
picture of Theodore Roosevelt with the compliments 
of the New York “Blade,” a cartoon of a vase of 
roses in a gilt frame, a window with a wide crack in 
the upper pane of glass—or else it was grinning at 
me: “Not so good, eh?” 

Still, everything is as clean and neat as a new pin. 
But I can’t sleep in a new pin. I’m looking for a out, 
when Mrs. Willcox, the kind of silvery-haired, sweet¬ 
faced old lady your grandmother was or is, takes 
things in hand. 

“This here’s seven and a half dollars a week with 
board—ahump—in advance,” she says, and looks at 
me. I guess she must of heard me gulping. I had 

3 


4 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


eight dollars, even. “What did you say your name 
was?” she adds. 

I ain’t said nothing about my name, but I did now. 
“Gale Galen.” 

“Plannin’ on stayin’ in Drew City for a spell?” is 
the next question. 

“That’s up to Drew City,” I says, telling the truth. 

(< j_>> 

“What sort of business you in, Mister Galen?” she 
cuts me off. 

The “Mister” tickled me. Why shouldn’t it at 
seventeen? I bet the first time you was called “Mister” 
it tickled you too. 

“The business I’m in right now, Mrs. Willcox,” I 
says, “is looking for a job.” 

“Ahump!” says Mrs. Willcox, plenty suspicious. 

I leave her to be that way, for the reasons that I 
have already made up my mind that I don’t want no 
part of that two-by-four room for seven and a half 
or for nothing at all a week. Even if I am a poor fish, 
I am no sardine. I like plenty of parking space. So I 
kind of moved to the door. 

“I don’t think I want to take—eh—” I begin. 

A door slams open downstairs with a bang, feet 
comes pattering up the two flights, a voice that made 
me snap out of it with a click calls: “Oh, mother!” 
and a minute later a million dollars’ worth of girl 
yanks open the door, sees me, says, “Oh, I beg your 
pardon !” and blushes into two million dollars’ worth 
of girl. 

“Land sakes, Judy, can’t you ever come into the 



A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


5 


house ’thout bangin’ the doors off?” says Mrs. Will- 
cox, kind of peeved. Judy shakes a head of hair that 
must of enraged a lot of her girl friends and shows 
me all her nice white teeth. Me? I’m double cuckoo! 
I don’t know what it’s all about till Mrs. Willcox 
coughs and it wasn't from no cold. I reached in my 
pocket and handed over all but four bits of my bank 
roll. 

“I’ll take the room, Mrs. Willcox,” I says, pushing 
the money into her hand. “Eh—I want to see some 
people here and—eh—what time is supper?” 

“Dinner,” says Judy, her eyes twinkling at me, 
“is at seven.” 

“I generally always exchange references,” says Mrs. 
Willcox, looking at Judy and frowning a bit. “And 

“That’s all right,” I says from out in the hall. “You 
don’t need to give me no references, Mrs. Willcox!” 
and then, before she could say some more, I took the 
air. I had to get a job. Less than a hour later I 
landed one as soda jerker in Ajariah Stubbs’ “Cash 
Beats Credit!” drug -store. Seven a.m. to 9.30 p.m. 
and very few laughs. 

That was six years ago and maybe you think that’s 
a lot of memorandum about nothing at all to remember 
that long. You wouldn’t think so if you could of seen 
Judy—that’s Judith Willcox. It ain’t the slightest 
trouble for me to remember every detail in any ways 
connected with me meeting her. I’ll remember that 
right up to the time they send for the embalmer! Yet 
I’m no memory shark. I forget plenty things, as some 



6 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


of my many ex-bosses could tell you. They should— 
they told me. But certain things kind of stand out, 
things that I don’t have to look back to, they’re 
always as fresh and clear down to the smallest detail 
as if they happened yesterday. Like these—the time 
Dewey got rid of the Spanish navy at Manila Bay and 
I got rid of armfuls of special extras on a street corner 
in Boston, when I should of been in public school 
instead of being a studious pupil of nine summers in 
the School of Experience . . . the time I fell off a 
dock into the harbor at the mellow age of eleven and 
find out I can’t swim ... a operation for appendicitis 
. . . the pay envelope from my first job . . . the first 
time I seen Judy Willcox . . . but that’s enough to 
give you a idea of what kind of things sticks in my 
mind. I remember Dewey’s sensational win because 
I get a nickel apiece that morning for penny papers, 
the flop into the harbor for the reasons that a cop 
pulled me out and gets both our pictures in the paper, 
the operation because I didn’t have appendicitis, the 
pay envelope because I lose it, and the first time I seen 
Judy Willcox because she knocks me so dizzy I rush 
out of her mother’s boarding house without any hat 
and had to buy another one with my last half dollar, 
on the account I’m afraid I can’t get a job bareheaded. 

Well, anyways, after a year I’m still on the wrong 
side of the counter, mixing a mean ice cream soda and 
shaking a wicked egg phosphate for old Ajariah 
Stubbs. I was clicking off twelve bucks the week and 
I had plenty responsibilities—I deliver in a flivver, 
prescriptions and ice cream. But Ed made up my 


A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


7 


mind I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life be¬ 
hind no soda fountain. I didn’t do all my dreaming 
at night and I was determined that some day I was 
going to mean something. 

What brings me to Drew City, in the first place, is 
the Jersey Central Railroad and a desire to see Jack 
Reynolds, which jerks soda with me in Boston before 
he goes back to his home town, this village thirty- 
eight miles from New York where even the circus only 
stops for a day. Jack’s real trade is being a advance 
agent for carnivals, and between seasons why, he puts 
on a white coat and apron and slings soda. 

You’d be surprised at some of the fellows you run 
across in the soda-dispensing game. While I was in 
it, I worked side by side with actors, chorus men, song 
writers, press agents, scrappers, fellows working their 
ways through college, ex-bartenders, etc. and etc., all, 
except the ex-bartenders, waiting for something to 
turn up in their own line. You know in the big towns a 
first-class soda jerk can knock off eighteen to twenty 
bucks a week and a good head soda man which can 
also mix syrups can ask and get twenty-five to thirty. 
Plenty of milk-fed private secretaries and law clerks 
gets far less. 

Aside from the fly-by-nights, which only goes be¬ 
hind a fountain while waiting for a chance to do their 
real trick, there’s thousands of fellows has made a 
first-class trade out of jerking soda. And to get the 
important money you got to know a whole lot more 
about the calling than just being able to put on a 
white coat and apron and saying: “Get your checks 


8 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


from the cashier, please!” Oh, my, yes! If you 
don’t think so, try and get a job on a first-class 
fountain in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago, 
and hamlets of that size. You get put through a 
examination that would make Edison’s foolish ques¬ 
tions sound like a kindergarten test and you got to be 
well heeled with references, don’t think you don’t. 

You can tell a big league head soda jerk by the way 
he picks up a glass, but the acid test is what kind of 
chocolate syrup he can make in the summer and what 
kind of tomato bouillon he can throw together in the 
winter when hot drinks gets the call at the fountain. 
Plenty flavors can be bought in bulk, but no first-class 
fountain buys tailor-made chocolate. The most 
popular flavor of ’em all is always made personally 
by the head soda man and he takes as much pride in 
his chocolate as Dempsey does in his right hook. He 
says it with chocolate and he composes a mean syrup. 
You bother him when he’s making up a batch and 
good-bye job! Fountains is made or broke amongst 
soda jerks by their chocolate syrup and making it 
right is a sure enough gift. 

Well, when I get to Drew City, Jack Reynolds has 
gone away a week before with some carnival, so my 
chances of busting head first into the theatrical busi¬ 
ness is all shot to pieces. I ain’t got enough jack to 
get back to Boston, and New York frightens me in the 
short view I get of it changing trains. I don’t even 
know a street address there and it looks so big and 
cold-hearted—everything and everybody rushing and 
tearing along with a kind of wild, worried look on 


A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


9 


their faces—well, it scares me stiff, no fooling! Then, 
like I said, along comes Judy Willcox, and I hang my 
hat up in Drew City and call it home. 

At first I don’t make the headway with Judy that 
I’d like to, and that’s a fact. She was sixteen when I 
hit Drew City and on her seventeenth birthday I gave 
her a gold-banded fountain pen with her initials on it. 
Judy got a total of nine presents for that birthday. 
Five of ’em was gold-banded fountain pens and I wish 
now I had gave her my present in cash and she could 
of got something she really needed—probably fountain 
pen ink. 

Anyways I made myself a lot of friends among the 
fellows and girls that went to Drew City Prep and 
come in the drug store every afternoon for their sodas 
and sundaes. I went to work and invented a drink 
called Drew City Surprise, and the gang went crazy 
about it. It had everything in it but the kitchen stove 
and we got twenty cents a copy for it. I had a terrible 
battle with the boss the first time I paste up the sign 
on the mirror back of the fountain. He claims they 
ain’t nobody living will pay twenty cents for no soda 
fountain drink, unless I put a dime in each and every 
glass, but I says if I can get them to try a Drew City 
Surprise they will pay twenty cents or even more for 
it, for the reasons that it’s something new and a bit 
different from plain ordinary soda fountain drinks. 
Then again, the high price will make ’em think it must 
be good and the fellows will want to show off in front 
of their girls so they’ll order it. 

Well, I am right and old Ajariah smiles for about 


IO 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


the first time since he found a dollar bill wedged under 
the cash-register drawer when he bought the store. 
He says I ought to be a salesman, and maybe next year 
he’ll put me on the drug counter, where the patent 
medicines and the 85 per cent profits is. But I can’t 
get him to try a “Drew City Surprise” himself, be¬ 
cause he says he has watched me and I never make it 
the same way twice and that’s a fact, for I forget how 
I make it the first time. Still and all, they’s no com¬ 
plaints from nobody, so why worry? 

After you leave Drew City Prep you go either to 
Princeton or to work, according to how is things with 
your people. But outside of Judy Willcox, most of the 
gang that come in the drug store belongs to families 
as rich as a custard, and they all go to some swell 
college the same as their fathers and mothers done 
before them, just like I went to work the same day as 
my fathers and mothers done before me. The routine 
is a little different on the account everybody is equal 
at birth when it don’t mean nothing, but if they was 
all equal at around seventeen, why, it would mean 
plenty! In that case I would of been going to this 
Drew City Prep and getting my three squares a day, 
too, instead of jerking soda for Ajariah Stubbs so’s 
in the order tfo eat and depending on what I can re¬ 
member of this and that to get a education. 

Among the first friends I make in Drew City is 
Rutledge Spencer-Brock, a regular guy even if his 
name does sound like two collars and a Pullman car. 
His old man is down to his last twenty million, and 
some day Spence will be left about everything but 


A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


ii 


Niagara Falls and South Dakota, but he don’t put on 
no dog with me in spite of that. He’s about as old as 
me, but taller and thinner and one swell-looking fellow. 
Most of these flappers was just wild about him, and 
why shouldn’t they be wild over a baby like that, which 
can’t miss being a millionaire and just about owns this 
Drew City Prep? He was pitcher on the baseball 
team, quarter-back and captain of the football team, 
and the same week I arrived in Drew City he goes to 
work and takes over the interscholastic record for the 
dash of 440 yards. Likewise, he’s a dancing fool and 
throats a cruel tenor—which makes him about perfect 
from the girls’ standpoint, hey? 

Anyhow, me and Spence gets along like the Two 
Orphans. He had a elegant racing car, and we burn 
up the State road to Trenton in that sweet running 
boat many’s the time. We go duck shooting and 
fishing and like that together and the first Sunday I 
was off we both sneaked over to New York and went 
to this Coney Island. Some joint! We ride on every¬ 
thing in the place from the merry-go-round to the 
shoot-the-shoots and act like a pair of ten-year-old 
kids in the toy department the week before Xmas. 
Some of the things, like the roller coaster and the 
Dizzy Dip, why, we stay on a dozen times. I had 
eleven bucks saved up for a suit and that lasted about 
as long as a leaf of cabbage would last at a rabbits’ con¬ 
vention. Money and me is easy separated, and that’s a 
fact! While Spence is in a cigar store phoning his 
mother where he is, I blowed two of the last three of 
my eleven bucks taking a bunch of dirty-faced kids 



12 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


around on the scenic railway. Them kids is hanging 
around watching it like it is a ham bone and they are 
all collies, and every now and then they get chased 
away by the guy running the thing. 

Well, after a while I can’t stand looking at them, so 
I took the whole mob for a ride and be done with it! 

When Spence came out of the cigar store he bets me 
five bucks he can wallop a punching-bag machine 
harder than I can. So he hauls off and hits this bag 
and the dial registers 1,150. Then I stepped back 
and slammed it as hard as I could and the arrow points 
to 2,025, and Spence says the machine must be out of 
order. So we punch it again and this time Spence 
hits 1,475 an d hurts his hand and I hit 2,625 and hurt 
his bank roll, as he immediately hands over the five 
bucks with a grin, remarking that he would hate to get 
into a fight with me. Well, I wouldn’t get in no fight 
with him no matter what he done, because he is aces 
with me. But I would fight for Spence in a minute, 
don’t think I wouldn’t! 

But to get to the point, I guess I will always look 
back on the next day as one of the most exciting days 
I ever had in my life. It’s a big day for Drew City 
likewise, because Knockout Kelly, the welter-weight, 
comes down there the day before to train for his fight 
with Jackie Frayne in New York. The bunch stops in 
on their ways to school the following morning and all 
the fellows is talking about going out in the afternoon 
to Knockout Kelly’s camp and watch him do his stuff. 

Spence begs me to come out with him, so I ask old 
Ajariah can I have the day off and I won’t take my 


A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


13 


regular day next week. But they is nothing stirring! 
Ajariah says he can't let me get away on the account 
he’s going out to look at a sheriff’s sale. Where he 
went was out to Knockout Kelly’s training camp, be¬ 
cause Spence seen him there and told me. 

Why Ajariah Stubbs should be so keen about boxing 
I don’t know, unless it’s because he’s about fifteen 
years older than the Rocky Mountains and will soon 
be meeting the busiest boxer of ’em all—the under¬ 
taker. 

Well, Judy Willcox comes in with the rest of the 
gang that day and gives me a smile which cost Ajariah 
Stubbs exactly three cents because I drop a glass as 
the result. Judy has just went to work and had her 
hair bobbed off, and she asks me how do I like it, 
taking off her hat and flopping the hair around to show 
me. But whenever I see her face, why, that’s all I can 
look at, and she could of had a basket of eggs on her 
head and I wouldn’t of knew it. I’m looking into the 
bluest and shineyest eyes I ever seen or want to and 
I’m kind of trembling like I done when I first seen her, 
and like I always do when I see her since. Then a 
nasty voice says: 

“Come on, snap out of it—do your sleeping at night! 
Two orange phosphates.” , 

This is a guy called Maurice Dempster, and he’s 
carrying Judy’s books for her, the big stiff! His old 
man owned the carpet factory here, which seems to 
make this fathead think he’s the duck’s quack. We 
like each other the same way a rat loves a ferret and 
the fact that he’s stuck on Judy don’t make me want 


14 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


to kiss him every time I run across him either. I 
don't know how Judy could ever see this baby, with 
his fat face and beady little eyes, which is still beady 
even when he laughs. 

“Oh, don’t be so cranky, Rags, you’re like an old 
bear!” says Judy, and she don’t seem to like this 
dumbbell hollering at me. “Besides I don’t want an 
orange phosphate, I want a chocolate fudge sundae.” 

“I should say not!” says Rags, like he’s her father. 
They call him “Rags” on the account of his old man’s 
carpet mill. “I should say not! It’s too soon after 
your breakfast. Hurry up with those phosphates, 
will you?” 

“Be yourself and quit that hollering!” I says, lay¬ 
ing a chocolate fudge sundae and a exceedingly bitter 
orange phosphate down in front of ’em. 

“Can’t you understand English?” snorts Rags. “I 
didn’t order a sundae, I said two-” 

“Well, I ordered a sundae,” butts in Judy, dipping 
her spoon in this rich goo and rolling her eyes up at 
the ceiling. “This is perfectly heavenly!” she says. 
So is she! 

Rags gets red in the face and Judy catches him in the 
mirror back of the fountain and she winks and laughs. 
Acting like he’s worried about something, Rags gives 
me a horrible look. 

“Thirty cents, please!” I says to him. 

He begins going through his pockets and his face 
is now the color of a ripe tomato. “I—eh—I’ve only 
got—I find I have only twenty cents with me,” he 
stutters, glaring at me. “That would have been enough 



A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


15 


for the two orange phosphates I ordered. I don’t see 
why I should have to pay for your stupidity—you 
misunderstood my order and-” 

Judy laughs and opens her purse. 

“Oh, I’ll pay for my own luxuries,” she says, slap¬ 
ping a dime on the counter besides Rags’s two. Just 
to make Rags feel bad, I rung it up. Imagine a guy 
with a carpet mill in his family taking a girl in a drug 
store for a drink and then having to borrow the money 
from her to pay the bill! 

Rags is fit to be tied and he gulps down his phos¬ 
phate and jumps off the stool. His face is all screwed 
up in a knot and I don’t blame him, as I put plenty 
phosphate into his glass! Then he growls at Judy to 
hurry up or they’ll be late. 

“I’m going to report you to Mr. Stubbs!” he snarls 
at me. 

“Do that!” I says politely, polishing up back of 
the fountain. 

“If you do any such thing, Rags,” says Judy, very 
cold, getting up and wiping her wonderful lips with 
the paper napkin I give her—“if you do any such 
thing, I’ll have nothing further to do with you!” 

“Laugh that off!” I says to Rags—and make a 
enemy for life. 

Judy comes in by herself again after school in the 
afternoon and they ain’t nobody in the store but me. 
The boys is all out at Knockout Kelly’s camp, and the 
girls is busy getting their costumes ready for a 
masquerade that Stella Armitage, Spence’s girl friend, 
is giving the next night. Judy orders up a chocolate 



i6 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


fudge sundae, and while I am going out of my way 
to make this the greatest sundae ever placed in a dish, 
I happen to look at her books which she has laid on 
the counter. Most of ’em is Latin, Greek, and French 
and I am thinking I only wish I had a chance to study 
them languages and maybe get away from the soda 
business and not be no dumbbell all my life. 

But I am having plenty trouble with the English 
language then, as far as that part of it goes! That’s 
what gets me sore when I think things over, like I do 
now and then when I ain’t thinking of Judy and how 
much chocolate syrup I got on hand and will I ever 
get any more than twelve bucks a week. I think sup¬ 
pose I did get a crack at a job with some kind of a 
future in it right then—what good would that do me 
when, as far as education is concerned, I don’t know 
what it’s all about? 

They must be something I can do which will get me 
further than jerking soda will, I think, but how am I 
ever going to find out what that something is, with 
the schooling I got ? They may be a big league lawyer, 
or a first class doctor, or a world beating business man 
in me somewheres, but how can I bring that out when 
I have got to stick back of this fountain or else see 
how long can I fast? There ought to be some way of 
guys like me getting a crack at things. I bet there’s 
lots of rich fellows in college which don’t give a dam 
what they do after their four years is up. Well I’d 
of give a leg for even one year at college and I bet 
when I come out I’d of did a whole lot more than just 
go to the annual football games, and that’s a fact! 


A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


i7 

Anyway I slapped a dollar’s worth of whipped cream 
on the top of this chocolate fudge sundae and put it in 
front of Judy, and then I notice she’s watching me, 
with a queer look on her pretty face. 

4 ‘Gale,” she says, “do you ever think about your 
future?” 

Now, ain’t that funny, when that’s just what I 
been thinking about? 

“Sure!” I says. “I think my future is all behind 
me.” 

“No—I’m serious,” says Judy. “And this whipped 
cream is delicious! What did you do before you came 
to Drew City, or is that too personal?” 

“Not at all, Judy,” I says. “It ain’t often I get a 
chance to—well, get this kind of stuff off my chest. 
They is nothing very exciting in my life’s history, so 
far. I was born of poor but American parents and I 
begin earning my keep at about eight—in the morning 
and of age. I’ve sold papers, split bobbins in a cotton 
mill, been a errand boy, printer’s devil, and took out 
orders for a butcher—that being about the only time 
I actually delivered the goods!” 

“But when did you go to school?” asks Judy. 

“Before I got into the newspaper business—selling 
’em,” I says. 

“And that was when you were only eight years old?” 
she asks, and her eyes gets wider. 

I nods. 

“Well,” says Judy, very severe, “I think you must 
have been a very, very bad little boy to stay away from 
school just to sell newspapers for a few pennies!” 


i8 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


“Judy,” I says, “I would of been a very, very thin 
little boy if I hadn’t of stayed away from school to 
sell newspapers. We got so crazy about food in our 
family that we just had to have some every day or we 
wouldn’t play!” 

Judy stops eating that swell sundae and gives me a 
long look. Then she nods her head and sighs. 

“I—I understand, now,” she says, kind of soft. 
“Oh—that’s criminal!” 

“Well, Judy,” I says, “they’s plenty fellows like me, 
as far as that part of it goes. And then, again, some¬ 
body has got to be soda jerkers, I guess—eh—” I 
am trying to laugh matters off. 

“Surely, Gale, you don’t expect to be a soda clerk all 
your life?” she cuts in on me. The sundae is melting 
away. 

“No, Judy, I don’t!” I says slowly, sitting on the 
ice-cream tank back of the counter. “For one thing, 
I’d have a hard time shaking up malted milks when I 
got to be eighty-five, and for another thing, Judy, I’m 
going to get somewhere! Right now I ain’t got no 
more idea than a baby of what I’m going to be. I’m 
busy now living . . . some job for us guys. But I 
ain’t going to just sit back and moan because I fail to 
get born in a mint, like Rags Dempster and that 
• bunch. I got too much fighting blood in me to moan, 
Judy! I’m going to get me a education. I’m going to 
get that by hook or crook! I got to get some trick 
which will keep me alive while I’m plowing through 
books like you got there and trying to understand what 
they mean. Say—yesterday they was a lot of them 


A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


i9 


rich guys from the golf club in here and they’re talk¬ 
ing about the new locker room they’re putting in. Each 
one of them babies is socked for a thousand apiece— 
nothing at all to them. Why, I’d live a year on a 
thousand bucks, and I could go to some snappy school 
like you do, too! Well, I’ll get the thousand, or-” 

“Honestly, of course!” butts in Judy, as serious as if 
she’s forty instead of seventeen. But then girls is 
always older than their actual age, ain’t they? 

“Do I look crooked?’’ I grins. 

Judy laughs and shakes her head. “Well, I must 
go,” she says. “This has been awfully interesting, 
hasn’t it?” Then, like she just thought of it, she says: 
“Oh—you know that Stella Armitage’s masquerade 
dance is to-morrow night?” 

“I hear them all talking about it—yes,” I says, kind 
of surprised. “But what does that mean to me?” 

This is one of the very few times I ever see Judy 
act timid and shy. 

“Well—well, the girls are to choose their own 
escorts and-” 

“And you’re going with Rags Dempster!” I finishes 
for her, kicking a empty fruit can the length of the 
fountain. 

“I am not!” says Judy, straightening her hat in the 
mirror. “I’m going with you! Are these caramels 
fresh?” 

What do I care about caramels? I am around the 
counter in a jump! 

“Is that level—you mean that, Judy?” I holler. 

“Of course!” laughs Judy, moving to the door. 




20 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


“You mustn’t get so excited. I’m going to be an 
Oriental dancer, but don’t tell any of the crowd if 
they come in here to-day. What are you going to be ?” 

“I think I’ll go as a soda dispenser!” I says, still in 
a trance from her asking me at all. “Or else I’ll empty 
a bowl of whipped cream on my head and pretend I’m 
a nut sundae. I—eh—don’t worry about that part of 
it, Judy, I’ll dig up some kind of a layout. But, say, 
listen—are you just asking me to go with you so’s to 
steam Rags Dempster up?” 

“If you think so, don’t come!” snaps Judy. Then 
she’s laughing at me again. “However, Mr. Gale 
Galen, if you decide that you can condescend to ac¬ 
company me, we should be at Stella’s about half past 
eight.” 

“But listen, Judy, you-” 

A wave of her hand, a slammed door and she’s gone. 
It’s just Ajariah Stubbs’s drug store again and I am 
just a soda jerk. Both me and the store seemed some¬ 
thing entirely different when she was in there! 

Well, the next thing is can I get off the night of the 
party and also where am I going to get me a costume 
for this masquerade, in twenty-four hours’ notice? 
I got brains enough to know that this ain’t simply a 
case of putting paint on your face and wearing girl’s 
clothes, like the kids does on Hollow Eve. Stella 
Armitage’s house is bigger than the library, which it 
looks a whole lot like from the outside, and they’re the 
only ones in Drew City which has what is called Jap 
house boys. Likewise, they got two chauffeurs and a 
imported butler and pay a fearful income tax. Still, 



A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


21 


Stella and me and Spence has often kidded together 
at the fountain and Stella’s never let her people’s money 
tie up conversation as far as I’m concerned. 

That night when I come back from supper, or 
“dinner,” as Judy nicknames it, I ask Ajariah can I 
get off the following evening at seven instead of half 
past nine, and after plenty hemming and hawing he 
says yes. Plaving got that all settled, why, the next 
thing is what am I going to wear to the masquerade ? 
I call up my pal, Spence, and he says he’s got a extry 
devil’s suit and he’ll let me borrow it, because he’s 
going as a pirate. 

So a few minutes before I lock up the store, Spence 
brings down the devil’s suit and it is certainly a swell 
costume. But when we come to trying it on me down¬ 
stairs in the stock room, why, the only thing fits me is 
the mask on the account I am broader across the 
shoulders than Spence. So the devil's suit is out and 
it looks like I'll be out too, unless I can scrape some 
kind of a costume together. Well, while we’re stand¬ 
ing there trying to figure some kind of a disguise for 
me, I am looking around the stock room when I see 
something that gives me a big idea. I slap my hands 
together and tell Spence to go on home, because I have 
got my costume and I’m all set. 

That's all I would tell him and he immediately 
hollers his head off, because he says he has told me 
what he’s going to be dressed like and I’m holding out 
on him. So then I told him that unless I am very 
much mistaken I am going as a clown and does he 
think that will be O. K. ? Spence says he didn’t see 


22 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


why not, for the reasons that they will certainly be at 
least one more clown there if Rags Dempster goes, 
whether Rags is dressed that way or not. 

After Spence goes home I lock up the store and take 
a pair of scissors from the surgical-goods case, a 
couple of spools of thread and a package of needles. 
Then I go down in the stock room and wrap up a arm¬ 
ful of cheese-cloth which we use to strain syrups with 
and a jar of carmine coloring extract which we use to 
make fresh strawberry flavor with. The cheese-cloth 
and the carmine is the things which I happened to see 
in the stock room and which give me the idea for me 
masquerade suit. I took ’em all home with me and I 
sit up cutting, painting, and sewing this here cheese¬ 
cloth till six o-clock in the morning, but by that time 
I have got a classy disguise in the shape of a clown’s 
costume. 

It was one tough job and I’m all in by the time I’ve 
tried this cheesecloth on me for the sixty-ninth and last 
time. I got carmine coloring all over my hands and then 
there is some which I got to scrub off the floor. I 
have rammed that needle in my fingers all night long 
and I’m so sleepy that it’s nearly more than I can do to 
keep my eyes open. Yet with all that I feel perfect, 
because I am going to take Judy to this swell racket and 
I have got a bear of a costume and to ask more would 
be ridiculous. 

Well it is almost six o’clock when I get done tailoring 
and I have got to open up the store at seven. I can see 
there is no use of me going to bed at all, so I sneak 
downstairs and tore off a cold bath and let it go at that. 


A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


23 


Judy don’t have to get up as early as I do and I don’t 
see her at breakfast, but Mrs. Willcox, which has been 
the same as a mother to me, claims I got rings under 
my eyes and look terrible. She insists on me taking a 
swallow of cod liver oil before sitting down to the 
table and it makes me as sick as a dog and all I can eat 
is a cup of coffee. 

I certainly burnt Ajariah Stubbs up that day and 
that’s a fact. A couple of times I fell asleep behind the 
fountain and I give a guy pepsin bismuth and a stiff 
argument, when all he says he asked for was a plain 
chocolate soda. By dousing my head in cold water in 
the syrup room and drinking a couple dollars’ worth of 
bromo-seltzer, why, I managed to keep awake till four 
o’clock, when Judy calls me up and what she told me 
kept me awake for the rest of the day without no 
trouble at all! 

The minute I hear Judy’s voice I know something’s 

up. 

“Gale,” she says, “please don’t be angry with me— 
but—but I can’t go to Stella’s with you to-night!” 

“Why, what’s the matter, Judy?” I says, kind of 
scared. “Are you sick?” 

“No— I’m all right, Gale,” she says, still in that 
funny voice. “It’s—it’s—Gale, this is very unpleas¬ 
ant and I may as well get it over with at once! Stella 
—Stella doesn’t want you to come, and I think she’s 
horrid, and if I hadn’t gone to such trouble about my 
costume, I wouldn’t go either!” 

I come near swooning away in a faint right in that 
phone booth! I feel like yesterday I see in the papers 


24 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


where I have been left a million bucks and this morn¬ 
ing I read where it’s April Fool. Here I have sit up 
all night long and—well, what’s the use! Knocking 
around since I been a kid has made me a pretty hard- 
boiled egg, but they’s a lump in my throat when Judy’s 
“Hello, hello—are you there, Gale?” brings me back 
to life. 

“What got her sore at me?” I says finally. “Stella 
Armitage was in here only a couple of days ago and 
we’re kidding about this and that. Why-” 

“Yes, and she’ll probably be in there again doing the 
same thing, and that’9 why I hate her!” says Judy. 
“Oh, don’t think I didn’t give her a piece of my mind, 
Gale. As if it should make any difference what you 
are—eh—I mean, when we’\ e all been so friendly. It 
isn't as if you were just an ordinary, everyday soda 
clerk that none of us knew—eh—or” 

Judy rattles along kind of nervous, but I miss quite 
a lot of what she’s saying. I feel sick, no fooling! I 
know what’s the matter now and why this Stella Armi¬ 
tage declares me out of her party. Stella Armitage is 
Stella Armitage, and I’m just a soda jerk which blew in 
from nobody knows. The kidding at the fountain is 
one thing; inviting me to her house is something en¬ 
tirely different. Right away I see where I fit in with 
this gang—nowheres! A lot of other plans I had made 
blows up with the one of going to the masquerade and 
the first time Judy stops for breath I says I hope she 
has a swell time and goodby. 

Then I get red-headed. 

I ain’t good enough to be asked to this Armitage 



A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


25 


Jane’s house, hey? Well,—I swear to myself that the 
day will come when she’ll be tickled silly to have me, 
or even to say she knew me! I’m good enough for 
Judy Willcox and Spence—and then I begin to wonder 
what Spence thinks about me being gave the air. 
Stella’s his girl and he means more than she does in 
the town. He’s been palling around with me, too, and 
of course he knows I expected to go to this party. 
Well, I get the idea that maybe he’s also laughed me 
off. 

I went down in the stock room, where I had hung 
up my clown’s layout to let the carmine dry, and they 
ain’t nobody in no hospital nowheres feels half so bad 
as I do! I look at this here masquerade costume, which 
half a hour ago seems very nifty to me, and now it’s 
just a lot of cheesecloth, which I have went to work and 
ruined by dabbing it with carmine. I think of how I 
sit on the side of my bed all night when I can hardly 
keep awake, jabbing that needle into my fingers and 
attempting to learn the mysteries of sewing at a 
minute’s notice. I think of how I kept trying it on and 
taking it off, and taking it off and trying it on, and— 
well, I make a wild grab at that clown’s costume and 
I rip it to shreds, and that kind of eases my feelings a 
little, anyways! 

When I go back to the fountain I begin polishing up, 
and a guy can do a great deal of first-class thinking 
when he’s polishing something, if he ain’t one of them 
whistlers or hummers. What I mean is, did you ever 
notice how some people, mostly women, will keep hum¬ 
ming or whistling when they’re polishing and dusting 


26 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


and the etc.? Then they’s others which kind of goes 
off in a trance when they get a polishing rag and a 
silver bowl or the like in their hands, and, while they 
are putting a shine on it, why, they will do all their 
thinking for the week. 

Well, while I am making the nickel plate look like a 
mirror, I am thinking that ten or fifteen years from 
then I will come back to Drew City in a Pullman called 
“Fauntleroy,” or something classy like that, and the 
whole burg will be at the station to meet me, waving 
flags and hollering “Hurray for Gale Galen, our new, 
rich, and popular governor!” After I make a few 
speeches and shake hands with one and all, I will order 
Stella Armitage’s big white house tore down for some 
legal reasons, and, of course, Rags Dempster will be in 
jail by that time, and I will haughtily refuse to turn 
him loose. Then I will give Mrs. Willcox something 
like a million and make Drew City the capital of New 
Jersey; but me and Judy will put the governor’s man¬ 
sion on Riverside Drive, New York. Old Ajariah 
Stubbs will be going around throwing out his chest 
and saying: “Why, that boy worked for me once, and 
look at him now !” 

By this time it’s six o’clock, and I made up my mind 
that as long as I ain’t going to the masquerade party I 
won’t take the night off, as what is there for me to do 
with it? If I had only knew the various things which 
was going to happen to me! Anyhow, I tell old 
Ajariah that I am going to get my supper and then I 
will come back and work. This tickles him silly, on 
the account it gives him the chance to go down to Kale 


A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


27 


Yackley’s cigar store and play checkers with Judge 
Tuckerman all night. They gamble for ten cents a 
game, but you would never think there was that amount 
at stake if you watched ’em. You’d think they was 
betting each other five thousand dollars on each and 
every move. 

I don’t go home for supper, because I don’t want to 
run into Judy, who’ll probably be all dressed up for the 
party, and that would only get me feeling bad again. 
So I had some ham and beans and coffee in Red 
Fisher’s Palace Eating House, and come right back to 
the store. Then the excitement begins! Ajariah is at 
the phone, and when he hangs up he looks at his watch 
and says: “Seems to me like you go clear to Trenton 
for your meals. Hump yourself now and git out this 
here order!” 

With that he hands me a slip of paper, and when I 
say that you could of took that paper to a Chinese 
laundry and got your collars out with it, why, you will 
get a idea of how Ajariah writes. But finally I make 
out: “I gallon vanilla, I gallon chocolate, I gallon 
orange ice.” 

“Where’s it go?” I says, starting out for the flivver. 

“Up to Armitage’s,” says Ajariah. “Must be 
carryin’s on there to-night!” 

Hot coffee! 

I like to fall through a show case. Imagine asking 
me to take this ice cream around to the back door of 
Stella Armitage’s house, right while this masquerade’s 
going on. To be flagged from the party itself and then 
made to deliver their refreshments to the kitchen! Sup- 


2 8 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


pose Judy sees me—or this cuckoo, Rags Dempster? 
It ain’t enough to make a tramp out of me by canceling 
my invitation, but I got to be made a fool of like this in 
front of a girl I’m crazy about and a guy that’s trying 
to make her! 

“What ails you?” snorts Ajariah, looking at me over 
his cheaters. “You sick?” 

“Yes, sir,” I says, kind of faint; “I’m terrible sick, 
Mister Stubbs! I—I can’t haul that ice cream up to 
Armitage’s—I—you don’t understand-” 

“ ’Pears to me like you’re a-doin’ too much runnin’ 
around at nights!” growls old Ajariah, coming out 
from behind the counter. “You been half asleep round 
here the hull day. Wouldn’t be surprised if you wasn’t 
gambling all night with them loafers in Nickmeyer’s 
garage. That’s all’s the matter with you; you ain’t been 
to bed. I kin tell by your eyes—look like two burnt 
holes in a blanket!” 

“I wasn’t doing no gambling,” I says. “I never been 
in Nickmeyer’s except for gas and oil.” 

“Where was you, then?” snarls Ajariah. “Speak 
up now!” 

I says nothing at all. I ain’t going to tell him I sit 
up all night making the clown’s costume for Stella 
Armitage’s masquerade and have him cackle his head 
off! 

“Can’t say, eh?” he grunts. “I thot so. Well, you 
shake a leg and git that cream up to Armitage’s, or you 
won’t have no more job here than a rabbit!” 

I know he means it. So I drag them cans of ice 
cream out to the flivver and run ’em up to Armitage’s, 



A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


29 


wishing I would have the good luck to hit a telegraph 
pole on the ways over. 

Stella’s house is lit up like a church, and there’s 
more cars outside it than there is at a auto show. I see 
Spence’s boat which I have took many’s the ride in, but 
I don’t see Spence, or nobody else, thank Heavens, till 
I run my flivver up the drive in the back. 

The delivery and servants’ entrance runs along the 
lawn, which is all fixed up with Chinese lanterns and 
streamers of different colored ribbon, and the Jap house 
boys is going around fixing up the tables. Most of the 
gang is there already, and I hear ’em laughing and kid¬ 
ding each other, and some of ’em is beginning to dance 
to the music of Eddie Granger’s Vesper A. C. Jazz 
Band. Stella’s old man hired the boys and I hear he 
paid Eddie five hundred bucks for the night and on top 
of that they all got a swell feed after the party was over. 

Well, I manage to unload the ice cream without none 
of the gay masqueraders seeing me, but as I am back¬ 
ing the flivver around to come down the driveway, I 
get it and I get it good! They’s a couple dancing right 
beside the hedge which separates the lawn from the 
drive, and they look up when they hear the noise of 
my bus. Its only by dumb luck that I don't run the 
flivver right into the hedge, because the couple is Judy 
Willcox and Rags Dempster. 

Both of ’em is masked, but Fd know ’em if they had 
checked their faces with their hats! I know every line 
of Judy’s, the way she carries herself and that dimple 
in her chin, which shows under the edge of the mask— 
I’d pick her out from a million without no trouble, be- 


30 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


cause Fm cuckoo over her. And I know every line of 
Rags Dempster because I like him the same way I 
like working fourteen hours a day for twelve bucks a 
week. As she told me, Judy is dressed like a Oriental 
dancing girl, but Judy would make a Oriental dancing 
girl take poison! Rags is wearing an Indian chief’s 
layout, for which his face is perfect. 

Judy waves her hand to me, and I manage to tip 
my cap, and this Rags throws back his head and laughs. 
“Wait there for a minute, boy!” he hollers. “Wait 
there a minute and Til send the butler out with a sand¬ 
wich for you; you look hungry!” 

Just before I shot through the drive in the flivver I 
hear Judy bawling Rags out. A little satisfaction, but 
not the satisfaction I wanted right then. To of kicked 
Rags over the hedge would of been much better! 

That old tin can never traveled so fast in its life as 
it done from Stella Armitage’s house to the store. 
Rounding the corner of Jefferson Lane to turn into 
First Street, I crashed over one of the three traffic 
standards in Drew City, and put ten years on Hank 
King, which happened to be standing beside it. I make 
Joe Lannon put his fish wagon up on the pavement, and 
when Constabule Watson comes running out at Valley 
Street, yelling at me and waving his club, why, I chased 
him almost into the station-house doors. That cost 
me plenty the next day, but I ain’t thinking about that 
part of it then. I’m thinking about Judy Willcox and 
Rags Dempster, and why is it I didn’t jump over that 
hedge at Stella Armitage’s and have it out with Rags 
for once and for all! 


A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


3 i 


By the time I got to the store I am in fine shape to 
commit murder, but old Ajariah is crazy to get to his 
checker tourney with Judge Tuckerman, and he 
hobbled right away without saying a word to me. If 
he had I would of surely lost my job right then and 
there, no fooling. 

I’m just going to close up the store at half past nine 
when two fellows comes in and sits down at the foun¬ 
tain. They’re a couple of tough-looking babies, for a 
fact. The youngest one of ’em has a flat nose and a 
cap pulled down over his eyes, and he’s wearing a dirty 
white sweater. I never seen either of ’em before, and 
that’s funny in Drew City, where I know everybody, 
you might say. 

“A couple of ginger ales and make it snappy!” says 
the guy with the sweater. 

That’s no way to talk to me the way I’m feeling 
then! 

“Take yc^ir time!” I says. “I got everything all 
closed here for the night and-” 

“C’mon, c’mon, don’t give me no argument; get them 
ginger ales out here, yokel!” he growls. 

I kind of trembled, and I see in the mirror back of 
the fountain that my face is good and white. I got my 
mind all made up what I’m going to do when I hear a 
familiar honk honk outside the door. That’s the signal 
Spence used to give when he come down to wait for 
me to close the store at night. In another minute he 
comes running in, all dressed up like a pirate and his 
face is red and mad looking. 

“Gale, I just found out that—oh, about the reason 



32 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


you didn’t come up to Stella’s to-night,” he pants. “I 
hope you don’t think I had anything to do with that . 

I’ve had a frightful row with Stella over it, and-” 

The fellow with the sweater gets off the stool and 
walks up to the end of the fountain. He looks at 
Spence in the pirate’s suit and back to his friend with 
a nasty grin. Then he turns to me, and the grin has 
went. 

“Say, you big dumbell, get busy on them ginger ales 
or I’ll slap you for a mock orange!” he snarls. 

I am talking to Spence and I pay no attention. 
“That’s all right, Spence,” I says. “I don’t blame you 
and maybe Stella’s right. Go back and have a good 

time. I don’t belong and-” 

But Spence is looking over my shoulder at the other 
fellow, and Spence’s eyes is wide and scared. He seems 
to be trying to make some signals to me with ’em too. 
The tough-looking baby suddenly grabs me by the 
shoulder and gives me a push. “Get back there and 

give us them drinks!” he bellers. “You-” 

Never mind what he called me. I swung around and 
looked at him, and my mouth slips into a nervous grin, 
which I want to stop and can’t. Then I shot out my 
right arm as hard as I could—like when I slammed 
that punching bag at Coney Island with Spence. My 
fist landed fair and square on this fellow’s chin, and it 
felt like hitting the side of a building, but he went down 
on his back like I’d stabbed him through the heart. 

Spence yelled, and the other fellow let out a terrible 
curse. But I felt wonderful. I never knocked nobody 
down before in my life, and I want to say it is quite a 





A PUNCH—AND JUDY 


33 


sensation! My nerves gets quiet and my temper gets 
cool, and as I blew on my sore knuckles and little 
finger, which is beginning to swell and feels kind of 
numb, the only thing I’m wishing is that this fellow on 
the floor will get up and come at me! 

Spence and the fellow that come to the store with 
the guy I hit is standing there staring at me like they 
can’t believe their eyes. The stranger finally bends 
down and looks over his friend on the floor. 

“You hit hard!” he grunts at me. “Get me a bottle 
of ammonia and some ice water.” 

I got ’em and he douses the cold water on this fel¬ 
low’s face, and, uncorking the ammonia, holds it under 
his nose. Pretty soon my victim’s eyes open9, and the 
other fellow starts helping him up, with his face half 
turned to me. 

“Know who you just stopped?” he says in a odd 
voice. I shook my head. What difference did that 
make ? 

“He’s just Knockout Kelly,” he says; “’at’s all he 
is!” 

“And you knocked him out—you knocked him out! 3 ’ 
sings Spence, dancing around wildly. 

Well, I get sick to my stomach, and that’s a fact. 
I hit Knockout Kelly, the prize fighter! Why, I 
thought, he’ll get up off that floor and about murder 
me! And he did straighten up on his feet just then 
and make a rush at me, but his friend holds him back. 

“C’mere, you sap!” he hisses at him. “What d’ye 
wanna do—break your hands on this guy? We’ll 
square this in good time!” He turns around to me 


34 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


and winks heavy. “You—eh—you wanna beg K. O.’s 
pardon, don't you?” 

Don’t I ? Say, you ought to see me grab this chance 
to escape being killed. I can’t get my hand out quick 
enough. Imagine me hitting Knockout Kelly! 

Knockout Kelly just barely touched my hand. 
“We’ll get together on this again, feller!” he mumbles, 
not very forgiving, I must say. 

“Sure!” says his friend, smiling at me a id patting 
Knockout Kelly’s shoulders. “Sure—we’ll play you 
again some time. But now —eh—ever do any boxin’, 
kid ?” he asks me, looking me up and down. 

“No, sir,” I says; “I never did.” 

“Well—you’re goin’ to!” he says. “I’m Nate 
Shapiro, K. O.'s pilot. Come up to the Commercial 
House at ten tomorrow. I wanna talk to you. You’re 
one sweet puncher, if you are a hick, and-” 

“I can’t get there till noon,” I butts in. “I got to 
open up the store at seven-thirty.” 

“Open up nothin’!” snorts Nate Shapiro. “You’re 
all through mixin’ banana punches and the like. I’ll 
get you more jack for your punches than you’ll ever 
see here. C’mon, K. O.” 

And they went out. 



ROUND TWO 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 

That same night, when they have all went to bed 
in Mrs. Willcox’s boarding house, I sneaked down¬ 
stairs, got Judy’s schoolbooks off the hall rack, and 
took ’em up to my room because after I have retired 
I find that me and sleep can’t seem to get acquainted. 
The first one I open up is a French Dictionary. It 
could of been a Chinese Grammer for all it means to 
me! The only French I know is “Oo la la” and “Croix 
de Guerre,” and now that the war’s supposed to be 
over, why, both them remarks has went out of use. 
The next novel is entitled “A1 Gebra” and is simply 
a case of crossing the alphabet with arithmetic. Two 
passages of A 1 gets me dizzy. “How much is twice 
H?” “Divide Y Z by 56.” How do they get that 
way? 

They’s two books left, and in one of ’em is a note 
saying Judy has got to read this pair for her English 
Literature Class. I immediately join the Class. One 
book is called “The Saint’s Tragedy,” dashed off by 
a fellow named Charles Kingsley. The other is “The 
Last of the Barons,” a much thicker book, by Edward 
Bulwer Lytton. I come near firing ’em out the window 
when I see Rags Dempster has wrote his name on the 
first page of both, right under Judy’s! 


35 


36 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


“What thoughts do these books inspire you with?” 
is one of the questions Judy will be called upon to 
answer, according to the slip of paper in ’em. Well, I 
don’t know what thoughts they inspired Judy with, 
but they is a wise crack in each of ’em which makes me 
do a piece of thinking, and that’s a fact! 

“Toil is the true knight’s pastime!” claims Charles 
Kingsley, and “To have fame is a purgatory, to want 
it is a hell!” says Eddie Lytton. Well, if Charles is 
right, then every day I’m a knight, because I was toil¬ 
ing like a Chinese coolie behind Ajariah’s soda foun¬ 
tain. As for Eddie’s statement, I didn’t know what 
it is to have fame, but he said a mouthful when he said 
to want it is a hell. Take it from me; I know! No 
dope fiend ever craved for a long-delayed pipe like I 
craved to be a success at something— anything! The 
only thing I really knew anything about was jerking 
soda, and I was eighteen. But I hadn’t been plied with 
enough education to grab off a job with a future in it, 
or even a present, for that matter! 

I had fame listed in my mind like I see the race 
horses listed on the programs at the County Fair at 
Drew City that summer: “Fame, aged, by Work, out 
of Ambition!” Well, I was going to lead the field 
under the wire on this imaginary horse, or croak try¬ 
ing. 

I woke up at seven a. m. thinking about the heavy 
date I got with Knockout Kelly’s manager at the Com¬ 
mercial House. Whilst I’m hopping around to keep 
warm under the coldest needle shower in Drew City, if 
not in the wide, wide world, I remember what Nate 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


37 


Shapiro says to me after I have put Knockout Kelly 
on the floor: “You’re all through mixin’ banana 
punches and the like, kid—I’ll get you more jack for 
your punches than you’ll ever see here!” 

I know that means he wants to make a prize fighter 
out of me, and then I think—why not? I have always 
made it the point to be healthy, and being born husky 
I’ve took the greatest of care to keep myself that way. 
When I been eating regular, like I had in Drew City 
for the past year, I stripped at 142, and if I walk 
under anything lower than five foot ten, why, I got to 
bend my head. Of course I had never done no fight¬ 
ing in a ring or much anywheres else either, but still I 
don’t ever remember running home bawling because 
somebody picked on me. I’ve generally always been 
able to take care of myself since I’ve had to, and, to 
the best of my memory, that’s been all my life. 

The more I think of it whilst I’m getting dressed, 
the more I’m keen to say it with left hooks instead of 
with nut sundaes. It’s a cinch I’ll never set the lake 
ablaze whilst I’m buried in a small-town drug store, 
and the question which kept me awake at night when 
I was errand boy, newsboy, bobbing boy, and printer’s 
boy is troubling me again. That question is, where do 
I go from here? 

Then, again, boss boxers gets as much for mixing 
up two punches in a ring as I do for mixing up two 
million punches behind a fountain. I figure a dozen 
fights might give me enough jack to lay the founda¬ 
tion of a education and also pull a chair up to a dining¬ 
room table three times a day whilst I’m doing it. I 


38 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


seen in the newspapers that Knockout Kelly, for the 
example, is to get five thousand dollars for boxing 
Jackie Frayne. And I knocked Kelly flat on his back 
with one punch! I think with a few more punches I 
can get a education, with a education I can get Judy 
Willcox, with Judy Willcox I can get anything! 

At breakfast Mrs. Willcox asked me, land’s sakes 
what am I thinking about, when I shake salt and 
pepper in my coffee and pour the cream on my fried 
eggs. Without hardly knowing what I’m saying, I 
tell her I’m thinking about Punch and Judy, which is 
true, but she stares at me so long I know my face is 
red, so I beat it. By the time I have got the fountain 
all polished up and iced for the day, I have decided to 
take Nate Shapiro up. 

He’s named ten a. m. as the time he wants to see me, 
and it’s a good hour after that when I left the Com¬ 
mercial House a different fellow than what I was when 
I went in there. When I go up to see Nate Shapiro 
I got matters all set in my mind that I’m going to make 
my living boxing. Where I come out, I don’t know. 
To be a professional scrapper a fellow needs a whole 
lot more stuff than just the ability to punch somebody 
in the jaw and the willingness to accept a duplicate in 
return. You got to study this game like you study 
to be a first-class doctor, lawyer, plumber, or banker. 
But then if you get to the top in it, you can put the 
first-class doctor, lawyer, plumber, and banker on your 
pay roll and never miss the money! 

“When will I have my first bout ?” I asked Shapiro. 
“In a week or so, that is roughly?” 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


39 


“Roughly is right!” grins the hard-faced Shapiro. 
“Roughly is the way I want you to act in your first 
fight —not bout. But toss you into a ring inside of a 
week? Be yourself! It’ll take you a dozen weeks to 
learn the first rule of boxin’.” 

“What’s the first rule?” I says. 

“Always keep your shoulder blades off the canvas!” 
says Shapiro. “Don’t laugh. Forgettin’ ’at rule some 
day will beat Dempsey!” 

“Well, how long before I would fight, then?” I says. 

“About six months,” says Shapiro—“ ’at’s if you 
show some stuff!” He comes over to the bed where I 
have sit down, or rather sunk down, when I hear the 
“six months!” I’d figured that in six months I’d 
either be whipped out of boxing or the biggest thing 
in it. “Don’t take it so hard,” goes on Shapiro, patting 
my arm; “I could let you step next week with some 
tenth-rater, he’d paste you silly, break your heart, cure 
you of ever liftin’ your hands again to even protect 
yourself and I’d lose a possible champ. Believe me, 
buddy, I ain’t in this box-fight game for the laughs in it. * 
I’m thinkin’ of Nate Shapiro first, last, and all the time! 
It wouldn’t hurt my nose if you got yours broke, but 
it would hurt my bank roll, and ’at’s one place I can’t 
take a punch! I know how all you kids feels when 
you’ve knocked somebody stiff for the first time. Take 
you, for instance—you think because you flattened 
K. O. Kelly with a lucky punch ’at you’re the cat’s 
whiskers, now don’t you?” 

“Well, I—eh—” I begin, the bit bashful. 

“Sure!” butts in Shapiro. “Well, don’t think too 


40 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


much of that, get me ? ’At showed me you could hit— 
’at’s all. You want to remember K. O. had his hands 
down, and he thought you would hit him the same way 
he thought you was Lillian Gish! You took him by 
the completest of surprise. Put six-ounce gloves on 
the both of you, flip you into a ring right now, and 
K. O. Kelly would stop you in less than a round, with¬ 
out workin’ up a sweat! 

“Why, I don’t know nothin’ about you at all. How 
do I know you can fight with your pan cut to ribbons, 
your eye closed tight, or your nose broke? How do 
I know you’ll get up and mix it after a knockdown? 
I don’t even know your name. What do they call you, 
kid?” 

“Gale Galen,” I says, getting gloomier every minute. 

“ ’At’s a good one too,” says Shapiro. “Easy to 
say, what I mean. I was afraid you might have a 
monniker which would baffle the announcers.” 

“Oh, I won’t box under rhy right name!” I says 
quickly. “I-” 

“O. K.,” Shapiro cuts me off. “If you do business. 
I'll pick you a good one, don’t fret. Less see, you 
goaled Kelly with a punch, and I got a hunch we ought 
to build on ’at. They’s ‘One-Round’ this and ‘One- 
Punch’ ’at—eh—how ’bout—I got it! We’ll tag you 
‘Six-Second Smith’! ’At rolls off the tongue easy and 
it means somethin’. Yes, sir, ’at ‘Six-Second Smith’ 
is goin’ to make the boy in the other corner thoughtful, 
and don’t think it won’t!” 

“It’ll make me thoughtful too,” I says. “That’s 
some name to live up to! Now, what—er—wages will 



THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


4i 


I get for the six months I’m—eh—learning my trade?” 

‘Til see ’at you eat,” says this ten-minute egg. “But 
not at the Ritz! Another thing, and you might as well 
know this goin’ in—you blow up on me in your first 
scuffle and you’ll find yourself in 'Who’s Through in 
America.’ I’ll drop you like a hot penny! Show me 
somethin’, even ’at you can take it—and you got a 
million to shoot at!” 

I get up after a few minutes and tell Shapiro I’ll 
consider matters again and let him know. I want to 
see what two people thinks about it—Judy Willcox 
and Spence Brock. 

Well, I ain’t been back on the fountain a half hour 
when Spence comes in for a egg chocolate malted milk. 
I served him my troubles with the drink. 

Much to my surprise, Spence don’t go wild over the 
idea of me becoming a pug. Somehow, he says, it 
seems to him like a step down, not up, for me to pick 
out prize fighting as a life work. 

“Not so good, Gale!” he says. “Not so good. And 
—Judy won’t like that!” 

“Look here, Spence,” I says, “I’ve simply got to 
make some move which will get me from behind this 
soda fountain into something worth while! I happen 
to be big and strong, and that lets me out. What else 
can I do, outside of being a fighter, with the education 
I got? D’ye think I want to be a soda jerker all my 
life?” 

“But why get excited over it now?” grins Spence. 
“You’re only eighteen, so am I. We’ve got our whole 
life before us and lots of time to choose a career. I’m 


42 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


not giving the future a thought until I leave college, 
and I’m not entering Princeton until next year. Why, 
we’re going to play around a whole lot yet before-” 

“Where d’ye get that we stuff?” I butt in with a 
bitter laugh. Spence, with a millionaire father, class¬ 
ing himself with me! “Did it ever occur to you, 
Spence, that they’s as much difference in our positions 
as they’s miles between here and the moon? You 
should annoy yourself about the future, with the bank 
roll you got in back of you! Not that I begrudge you 
a nickel of it, Spence, you know that. But it’s differ¬ 
ent here. I got to make my own future, and I got to 
make it now! I ain’t going to Princeton next year, or 
any year; I’ll have to take my view of college by hear¬ 
say. As for the playing around, fine—when I get 
somewhere. Right now, work, hustle, study what’s 
going on around me—for that’ll have to be my Prince¬ 
ton—till I find out what my particular trick is and then 
I’ll go to it!” 

“Atta boy!” says Spence, slapping the counter. He’s 
already changed to my way of thinking, like he usually 
does. “More power to you! Well, that’s fine! The 
first time you box in New York I’ll bring the whole 
gang over to root for you, and I’ll be cheer leader!” 
Then he gets serious and leans over the counter. 
“Listen, Gale,” he says. “If you’re not going to box 
for six months yet, and this Shapiro will only furnish 
your board and lodging until then—er—well, of course, 
there’s a lot of little things you’ll want, and—er—say, 
I have almost a thousand dollars of my own and I can 
let you have it—now don’t get so red in the face, this 



THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


43 

would be strictly a loan and you can pay me back 
when-” 

“That’s fine of you, Spence,” I cut him off. “And 
I’ll never forget it, don’t think I will. But—I—I got 
some money from—from my grandfather in Kansas 
City the other day, and I’m sitting pretty as far as 
jack is concerned.” 

Spence gives me a odd look, but I don’t flick a 
muscle. 

“Oh, did you?” he says. “Well, I’m glad to hear 
that. But if you—er—if your grandfather ever re¬ 
fuses you, let me know. See you to-night!” 

I don’t get a nickel from my grandfather in Kansas 
City. I ain’t got no grandfather. Both of ’em is dead, 
and I don’t think either of ’em died and went to Kansas 
City. But I don’t want to begin borrowing from 
Spence or nobody else. I don’t want nothing gave to 
me; all I wanted was a chance to make it myself. 

Spence has hardly went out when Lem Garfield, head 
and only clerk in The Elite Haberdashery, comes in for 
his daily dissipation. Lem’s a incurable frosted-choco¬ 
late addict, and he admits I compose a wicked soda. I 
generally put everything in his drink but the day’s 
receipts, and only charge him a thin dime, because, if 
they’s one fellow I felt sorry for, it’s Lem Garfield. 

Lem was in the same boat I was—he’s hungry for 
education too. The only difference between me and 
Lem was that disappointment had Lem licked. He’d 
quit trying. I’ll quit trying when I’m dead! 

Lem was born in Drew City and at twenty-three he’s 
as gloomy and hard boiled as a guy of eighty. He’s 



44 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


sore at the wide, wide world, and I don’t blame him. 
I’ll tell you why. When the war was throwed open to 
all comers, Lem didn’t wait to see if his number would 
win a free trip to Europe in the draft raffle; he throws 
up his job, hauls off, and enlists. Drew City got 
hysterical and give him a send-off which would of 
satisfied Babe Ruth. 

As Lem himself says, the day he was born, the day 
he started for camp, and the day he stepped off the 
train coming back from the war was the three biggest 
days in his life! On the last two days mentioned Lem 
could of married any girl in Drew City, took any job, 
borrowed any amount of money, even robbed the First 
National Bank, and he’d of had everybody’s good 
wishes. He was what is known as a “hero,” and Drew 
City went double cuckoo over him. Especially when 
he come back from France, wounded and with a Croix 
de Guerre on his chest, pinned there by a big French 
general on the account Lem goes crazy and captures a 
German machin-gun nest all by himself. 

That got in all the papers, put Drew City on the 
map, and Lem in the hospital. Now Lem was back of 
the gent’s furnishing counter again, ignored and for¬ 
got. Even the kids don’t pester him no more to see his 
medal or where he was wounded. Old Ajariah Stubbs 
says Lem ain’t got no push in him. He had some 
push in him when he went through them Jerrys, 
didn’t he? 

“They ain’t nothin’ in bein’ a hero!” says Lem 
bitterly, sipping his drink and opening up on his 
favorite subject. “What good did all them cheers do 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


45 


me? I’d ruther been gave one good job with some 
kind of chances for advancement in it than a million 
of them ‘Hurray for Lem Garfield’s.’ Ben Harkins, 
Joe Keen, Ollie Yerks, and them fellers got out of the 
draft on one excuse and another—Vince Neil, for ex¬ 
ample, on account he’s got flat feet. As if that made a 
difference—we didn’t have to dance with them Jerrys! 
But what I mean is this: all them fellers stayed home, 
tuk advantage of us boys bein’ over there fightin’ for 
’em, and grabbed up all the good jobs. Ben Harkins 
was gettin’ ten dollars a week in the bank when the 
draft tuk Matt Hamilton, the payin’ teller. Ben man¬ 
aged to git himself married—hardly lived with her 
since—and got exemption. Now Ben’s payin’ teller 
and poor Matt’s livin’ in New York, workin’ to-day 
and lookin’ for work to-morrow. Matt got gassed. 
And that’s the way it goes. A feller says anything 
about it, and they tell him: ‘Forget it. The war’s 
over!’ As whosthis says, you’ll find gratitude in the 
dictionary!” 

“But they made a big fuss over you when you first 
come back, Lem, didn’t they?” I says. I’ll never ask 
Lem that no more. The next second I felt like I had 
struck a match back of the fountain and immedi¬ 
ately seen Ajariah Stubbs’s drug store go up in 
flames! 

“Yeah!” snarled Lem, setting his glass down on the 
fountain with a click. “Yeah—they made a big fuss 
when I come back, over themselves! Mayor Gedge 
declares a holiday, Drew City is covered with flags 
and buntin’, all the lodges, Eddie Granger’s Vesper 


46 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Band, and the fire department parades, and the richest 
men in town was on the welcomin’ committee. I never 
heard so many long-winded speeches in my hull life 
and everybody learns the entire words of ‘The Star- 
Spangled Banner’ for the fust time. They was two 
pages in the ‘Sentinel’ about me, and my pitcher and 
everything. Two weeks later they forgot I ever come 
back!” 

“D’ye think they made all that fuss for my sake? 
Like fun! It give ’em a chance to be important for 
one day, and they snatched at it like the fust trout of 
the season after a fat fly. Them lifelong orators got 
a chance to orate and strut around wearin’ ‘Reception 
Committee’ badges, high hats, and swollowtail coats, 
and that’s why they done it! Is any of ’em interested 
in me now? No. Only to come around and ask me 
will I vote against the bonus and not ask my country to 
pay me for fightin’ for it. Well, I don’t want no 
bonus—I’m willin’ to make my own w^ay and aluss 
was. I’m agoin’ to study law by mail. I’ve aluss 
had a hankerin’ to be a lawyer, and Judge Tuckerman 
thinks I’d make a good one. If Drew City was really 
so all-fired proud of me, why didn’t they give me a 
chance to make suthin’ out of myself by fixin’ so’s I 
could go to law school?” 

Well, I don’t know about gratitude, but it did seem 
to me that Lem had a real kick coming. Maybe he has 
got a bent for law and would make a lawyer. They’s 
no question but that he loves to argue, and I often 
Beard old Ajariah snort that Lem’s “wuss than a 
Philadelphia lawyer!” Ajariah meant that to be a 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


47 

knock, but for all anybody knew, Lem would make 
good at it. But how was he going to find out ? 

Me and Lem was like two fellows without legs and 
both crazy to be runners. Artificial limbs would help 
us, but we ain’t got the price, and there you are! 

Lem argues that thousands of fellows in college is as 
out of place there as we’d be in Buckingham Palace. 
Fellows who’s talents runs in entirely different direc¬ 
tions from anything they’re studying. Master plumb¬ 
ers wasting four years jamming their heads with 
French and Latin, useless to them and to be quickly 
forgot when they get out. Further authors getting 
their brains dulled by law, first-class authors studying 
medicine, boss salesmen grinding away at civil engi¬ 
neering. Whilst on the other hand, says Lem, fel¬ 
lows which would make cracker-jack lawyers, doctors, 
civil engineers, etc., is wasting their lives in gent’s fur¬ 
nishing stores, plumbers’ shops, soda fountains, offices, 
and like that. Why not limit college education to them 
which deserves it, instead of making it a rich man’s 
way of getting his son off his hands for four years? 
They ain’t half enough colleges now, claims Lem, to 
take care of the mobs which descends on ’em every year. 
State universities is snowed under by refugees from the 
high schools, and private colleges is swamped. So why 
not go through these millions and weed out for college 
only the ones which is actually going to benefit by it. 

We’re well warmed up to matters and Lem’s ad¬ 
dressing me like he really is a district attorney, and I’m 
a jury, when there is a interruption in the shape of 
Constabule Watson. 


4 8 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


He marches right up to the fountain, glaring at me 
from under his bushy white eyebrows. I got a feeling 
that I am right on the brinks of having a lot of bad 
luck, because day before yesterday I liked to run over 
him with our delivery flivver. 

Ajariah Stubbs comes out from behind the prescrip¬ 
tion counter to say hello to him and then stops short 
when Constabule Watson growls at me. 

“Git off that air white coat and come over to the 
courthouse with me, you young hellion! I got a war¬ 
rant fur your arrest fur reckless drivin’. Should be 
for aggravated assault and battery. You come near 
killin’ me yistiddy!” 

Ajariah opens his mouth like a fresh-caught bass 
and stares from me to Constabule Watson, like he 
thinks his ears is lying to him. But Lem, the coming 
lawyer, is all business. 

“Let’s see your warrant, constabule,” he says, very 
important. “Don’t yew say a word, Gale, till I get a 
chance to look into this 1” 

“Fust thing you know I’ll ’rest you fur interferin’ 
with a officer of the law,” snorts Constabule Watson. 
“You keep your long nose out o’ this, Lem Garfield, 
or it’ll be the wuss fur you! Better git over to your 
shop. I see Nate Miller in there after a pair of over¬ 
alls and no one to wait on him.” 

Lem beat it. 

“Land o’ Goshen!” says Ajariah. “What’s all this 
to do about ? What did you say this young scallywag 
done—steal suthin’?” 

While Constabule Watson’s telling old Ajariah the 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


49 


details of my horrible crime, I slipped off my white 
coat and apron and put on my cap. We all go over to 
the courthouse together. Ajariah locked up the store 
and come with us, because a hearing in Judge Tucker- 
man’s court is more fun than any circus you ever seen. 
More fun for everybody but the prisoners! 

I guess everybody in the State of New Jersey has 
heard about old Judge Tuckerman, mostly because of 
what he does to auto tourists which speeds over the 
State road through Drew City—a road which would 
make a ballroom floor look bumpy and rough. There’s 
about eighty-six speed traps along the two-mile 
straightaway, which is kept in repair by auto drivers 
from all over the country, Judge Tuckerman receiving 
the donations by the via of stiff fines and stiffer costs. 
He ain’t so particular about the fines, the State gets 
that, but the costs has got to be paid because they go to 
him as wages. 

Judge Tuckerman is old enough to of knew Adam 
personally, and he’s got a way of looking at you over 
his glasses which makes you think that even if you 
didn’t do whatever you’re accused of, why, you prob¬ 
ably would of done it if you’d had the chance. He 
won’t let no lawyers plead in his court, because he says 
they’s no lawyer living which knows half the law he 
does, and him being a judge proves it. Pleading not 
guilty is the same as contempt of court, on the account 
Judge Tuckerman claims you must be guilty or you 
wouldn’t be dragged up before him. Once the judge 
grabs up his gavel, pounds on his desk and opens up 
court, why, all friendship ceases! 


50 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Well, they’s about a dozen cases brought before 
Judge Tuckerman this day, running all the way from 
speeding to assault and battery. I don’t think the 
judge wasted a half hour on the lot of ’em. Every 
one of the prisoners pleaded innocent, but that made no 
difference to Judge Tuckerman, which found ’em all 
guilty, sometimes before they got two and a half words 
out of their mouths, and slapped on the fines and 
costs with a lavish hand. I’m still laughing at these 
samples of Tuckerman justice when my case is 
called. 

The judge frowns heavy at me when Constabule 
Watson got done telling him how I nearly run him 
down with our delivery flivver. 

“Let’s hear what ye got to say, young feller/’ says 
Judge Tuckerman, squinting at me over his cheaters. 
“And don’t tell no more lies than ye have to! How 
d’ye plead?” 

Well, I seen what the rest of ’em got by pleading 
innocent so I thought I’d save time. “Guilty!” I says 
promptly. 

Instead of pleasing Judge Tuckerman, this honest 
confession seems to get him good and sore! He looks 
at me in a kind of pained surprise. I guess he thought 
I had deliberately spiked his guns, stopping him from 
giving me a good bawling out and then worming a 
confession out of me. He loves to do that, and I just 
kind of ruined his day for him by pleading guilty right 
off the bat. 

“Well, I’ll just make a example of ye for bein’ so 
smart!” he growls. “Thutty-five dollars fine and fifteen 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


5i 


dollars costs. Maybe that’ll take that grin off yer 
face !’* 

It did, for a fact! I ain’t got fifty dollars any more 
than I got three ears. Fifty bucks is a month’s wages 
—a pile of money! Old Ajariah is scowling at me 
something fierce, but still he’s my only hope. So I 
took a deep breath and turned to him. 

“Mr. Stubbs,” I says, “can I—eh—I—will you loan 
me fifty dollars, please? You can take it out of my 
pay, as much as you want a week.” 

Old Ajariah gives me a indignant whinny and glares 
at me. 

“I’ll do no sich thing!” he grunts. “And ye ain’t 
working fur me no more, ye young rip. I’m gettin’ 
shut of you right now! Ask some of them rich friends 
o’ yourn—them shameless young baggages from the 
school, with their short skirts and boys’ haircuts, and 
them good-fur-nothin’ cubs which hangs around my 
sody fountain. See if they'll help ye, now you’re in 
trouble!” And he looks around the courtroom, grin¬ 
ning like a shaggy old wolf, which is what he reminds 
me of just then. 

I felt like hollering at Ajariah right there in court 
that if it wasn’t for the “shameless young baggages” 
and their boy friends from Drew City Prep coming 
in for sodas every day, he’d have to close up his drug 
store. But I got other things to think about right 
then. I got to get hold of fifty bucks or—then Judge 
Tuckerman bangs impatiently on the desk with his 
gavel. 

“Can’t pay the fine, hey?” he says. “The idea! A 



52 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


strappin’ young buck like you and you ain’t got fifty 
dollars, eh? Wal —thutty days in the workhouse!” 

Blam! 

I feel like the courthouse has fell in on me. Thirty 
days in jail! Why, thirty minutes in a cell would drive 
me cuckoo! I been up,against it good and plenty many 
times since I been a kid, but jail is one thing Tve 
missed. It would about kill me, I’m satisfied of that! 
I stand there kind of dizzy till Constabule Watson 
grabs my arm and leads me over to Jeff Haines, Judge 
Tuckerman’s clerk. Jeff’s running a ink roller over a 
piece of paper, and he suddenly reaches out and 
snatches hold of my wrist. “Ever had your finger 
prints tuk?” he says, with a nasty grin. 

Well, this here’s too much. You’d think I was a 
burglar or something—take my finger prints! I jerked 
my wrist away so hard I pulled Jeff Haines halfways 
over his desk, and the sticky ink gets all over his 
clothes and face, which tickles me silly. Constabule 
Watson reaches for me, when they’s a commotion at 
the door of the courtroom and in rushes Nate Shapiro. 

“Where’s ’at kid from the drug store?” he bellows. 

I waved my hand to him. Never again in my life 
will I be so glad to see Nate Shapiro, no matter what 
he does for me! Judge Tuckerman bangs with his 
gavel and splits a glare between me and Nate. 

“Who d’ye think ye be, a-bustin’ into my court like 
this?” howls the judge. “I fine ye twenty-five dollars 
for contempt of court, and if ye don’t pay it I’ll send 
ye to jail!” 

Nate, which looks relieved when he sees me, just 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


53 


sneers. He pulls a roll of bills from his pocket that 
no grayhound in the world could jump over, and he 
throws a few of ’em on the desk. “Shoot the piece, 
grandpa!” he says. “There’s the twenty-five fish, and 
’at’s all you git if you cry your eyes out!” He turns 
to me: “You in a jam?” he .asks quickly, paying no 
attention to the judge’s red face. 

In a low voice I told him, kind of hurriedly, what 
was what. Nate grunts and hands the raging Jeff 
Haines my fifty-dollar fine. 

“ ’At’s seventy-five bucks I’m in you,” he says to 
me. “C’mon, git out of here before this old hick takes 
me for his winter expenses!” 

Well, getting the air from Ajariah Stubbs, and Nate 
Shapiro coming to my rescue at the critical minute, 
just about decided me what to do. I walked back to 
the Commercial House with Nate, and before I left 
him I had signed a contract with him, fixed legal by 
Mr. Tompkins, the recorder of deeds and notary public. 
Nate agrees to room, board, and clothe me till the time 
I’m able to earn my first jack in the ring; after that 
Em to give him fifty per cent of my wages. He 
promises he’ll rush me along to the top, but he says I 
got to be satisfied with small purses at first. This 
kind of casts me down a bit. I ask him what he means 
by “small purses.” 

“Oh—a couple hundred bucks a fight,” he says, care¬ 
lessly. 

Two hundred dollars a fight and Nate Shapiro calls 
that small! Why, I’d been working twelve hours a 
day for nearly four months for that much jack. And, 


54 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


just think, if I fought every night I could make four¬ 
teen hundred dollars a week! I told Nate that, and 
he grabs my arm and swings me around. “Are you 
tryin’ to kid somebody?” he snaps. I shook my head, 
and Nate gives me a long look. Then he laughs. 
“Well, you don't know what it’s all about, for a fact!” 
He says. “Fight every night, hey? How d’ye git 
’at way? You work twice a month and stay perpen¬ 
dicular whilst you’re in there, and I’ll be tickled!” 

I figure I’ll tell Judy all about this after supper that 
night and see what she thinks about me becoming a 
boxer. Of course the thing’s done now, but still and 
all a few words of encouragement from her would help 
me a lot. But once again I find luck’s against me. Judy 
has went out canoeing on the lake with Rags Dempster. 

A little later Spence Brock picks me up downtown 
in his new racing car, so I hop in beside him and tell 
him all the various adventures which has happened to 
me since he seen me that morning. Spence listens with 
the greatest of surprise and attention, and when I tell 
him about how old Ajariah Stubbs throwed me down, 
why, Spence swears they will never be another boy or 
girl from Drew City Prep go into his store, not even 
to use the phone. That cost Ajariah about $100 a 
week. While we’re talking, Spence swings the car 
to the bridge over the lake, and half ways across we 
get a blowout. I jump out to help Spence change the 
shoe, and happen to glance down at the water. Drift¬ 
ing along so’s they’ll pass right under us is Rags and 
Judy in Rags’s canoe. The arc lights along the bridge 
shows their faces up plain as day. 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


55 


Spence hears me grind my teeth, and he pats my 
arm sympathetically, because he knows how I feel with 
the regards to Judy. The canoe’s still drifting, when 
suddenly Rags gets up and starts towards Judy’s end 
of it, feeling his way carefully so’s not to upset it. 
Half rising, Judy calls to him to go back, and she 
sounds real scared. But Rags keeps coming on, laugh¬ 
ing kind of nasty, and Spence whispers, almost to him¬ 
self : “The big hound—not so good, Rags!” 

Not so good? Say—my nails is biting into the 
wooden rail of the bridge, and I feel the blood trying 
to burst out of my temples. I’m glad I never felt that 
way in the ring. If I had, I’d of killed somebody! 
Without much idea of what I’m going to do, I throwed 
one leg up over the rail, and just then Rags makes 
a swift grab for Judy. She breaks away, and the 
canoe tips over, dumping ’em both in the lake. 

Spence stands there petrified as the canoe rights it¬ 
self and slowly floats away, but I reach the top of the 
rail in one bound as Judy comes coughing and splutter¬ 
ing to the surface. Then I jumped in after her. The 
last thing I remember is Spence’s yell and Judy look¬ 
ing wild-eyed at me as I hit the water a foot from her 
head. Not having saw me before, she must of thought 
I fell right out of the sky! Then I went down, down, 
down. They say the lake’s fifteen feet deep under 
the bridge, but I don’t believe it. I bet it’s fifteen hun¬ 
dred! I took in about four gallons of muddy water 
and come up fighting for air. One look shows me 
Judy, Spence, and Rags swimming around the canoe 
like they’ve lived in water all their lives. Nobody in 


56 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


no danger there. That’s all I see, except Spence thrash¬ 
ing the water toward me when he spots my head. 
Then I went under again. 

I couldn’t swim a stroke. A swell rescuing hero, 
hey? 

Spence, which has win cups in interscholastic swim¬ 
ming races, was the real hero. He had to rescue me! 
By some expert juggling we all managed to get in the 
canoe and to the bank of the lake, where we got out, 
all set-ups for pneumonia if it happened to come along. 
Spence runs to his car and gets the lap robe to wrap 
around Judy, and while he’s gone Rags looks at me and 
sneers. 

“What do you think you are—a movie hero?” he 
says to me. “Imagine going overboard to save a per¬ 
son’s life and not even being able to swim!” He 
laughs long and loud. 

None of that water has soaked through to my tem¬ 
per yet, and I’m just going to tie into him when Judy 
lays her wet hand on my equally wet arm. 

“You—you can’t swim at all, Gale?” she asks 
me, her eyes opening wide. Even bedraggled from 
the ducking in the lake, she looked like a million 
dollars. 

“No, I can’t, Judy,” I says, getting good and red. 
“But I didn’t think of that when I jumped in. I was 
thinking of—Oh, what’s the use, I just made a fool of 
myself. Let’s forget it!” 

“I’ll never forget it, Gale!” she says kind of soft, 
and her hand’s still on my arm. “I think that was 
wonderful. Wonderful! That was real courage—Oh, 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


•57 

if you had been drowned! You knew you couldn’t 
swim and that the lake was deep, and yet-” 

This is steaming Rags up. He takes out a wallet 
and removes a bill, stepping over to us. 

“Here, boy,” he says, offering me the bill, “get your¬ 
self some dry clothes and—eh—run along now. If 
there’s any change, you might—eh—buy yourself some 
swimming lessons!” 

I knocked the bill out of his hand and he would of 
surely followed it to the ground if Judy hadn’t pushed 
quickly in between us. She gives Rags as two-handed 
a bawling out as I ever heard in my life, and when 
she got through, Rags looked like a whipped stray dog. 

Spence come along at the tail end of the thing, and 
his eyes twinkled as Judy wound up by turning her 
back on Rags and taking my arm to Spence’s car. 
After changing the punctured shoe Spence drove Judy 
and me home, and she insisted on spreading half the 
lap robe over me. We held hands under it like a couple 
of kids all the ways to the house, and if you could ever 
see Judy you would know that a little thing like being 
ducked in a lake is nothing compared to that! 

Well, Mrs. Willcox is scared stiff when she sees us 
come in looking like a couple of drownded rats, but 
Judy laughs things off and runs up to change her 
clothes while I go to my room and do likewise. I’m 
just about dressed when Judy knocks on my door and 
says to come right down to the parlor when I’m ready, 
because her mother is making us both something hot 
to keep off a cold. So I go downstairs, and there’s 
some hot lemonade and Judy’s dissolving rock candy 




58 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


in it. She’s got some kind of a Japanese kimona on 
and she’s just a magazine cover come to life. 

It nearly drives me crazy when I think I’ve got to 
leave Drew City for a while, and maybe Rags Demp¬ 
ster with all his money will get her, before I’ve had a 
chance to make good. When Mrs. Willcox comes in 
I tell ’em both all about what happened to me during 
the course of the day and that I’m going away with 
Nate Shapiro to be a boxer, because I want to make 
enough money to educate myself and get somewhere. 
Then I’m coming back to Drew City- 

I stopped there, looking hard at Judy, and she knows 
what I mean, for she gets a beautiful red which don’t 
escape her mother, who looks from me to Judy a bit 
sharp, but says nothing. 

The three of us talks things over for quite the while. 
Judy don’t .seem to be a bit against me being a boxer, 
but she also thinks I might go just as far without a 
college education. 

“You know, Gale, that Ingersoll said college was a 
place where pebbles are polished and diamonds are 
dimmed!” she says. “And I—I don’t like your going 
away one bit! That is, I—I mean—” She breaks off, 
blushing again, and Mrs. Willcox butts in to say she 
thinks I’m all wrong to leave Drew City to go out in 
the world and try to get famous. I’m too poor to be 
proud, she says, and on top of that, pride is sinful. 

Then she tells me what the Bible says about it. She 
thinks I should stay in Drew City and take up some 
good trade like drug clerk, steam fitter, garage 
mechanic, or the like which, she says, “will pay you 



THE KNIGHT IN GALE 59 

your good twenty-five to thirty dollars a week some 
day!” 

It also slips out, while Judy fidgets and coughs, that 
Mrs. Willcox’s a hundred dollars shy on a note held 
by the bank and due in a week. How she’s going to 
get the century is something she don’t know. This 
bothers me not the little, and I am thinking is there any 
way I could scare up that hundred bucks short of bur¬ 
glary and get it to that dear old lady without her know¬ 
ing who sent it, when the doorbell rings. Judy seems 
glad of the interruption to her mother’s hard-luck 
story and runs to the door. 

Mrs. Willcox peeps out the window through the 
curtains. 

“Why, it’s Mr. Dempster!” she says in a pleased 
voice. 

I liked to fall out of my chair! What is this fat¬ 
head doing around here after what just happened at 
the lake? And “Mister” Dempster! This big stiff’s 
only about my age—but he’s “Mister” and I’m just 
Gale. Still, if money gets a fellow attention in Wall 
Street, why shouldn’t it in Drew City? 

Judy walks in ahead of Rags without saying a word. 
She looks meaningly at me and then back to Rags, very 
stern and cold. 

“Well?” she says to him, eighty below zero. 

But with Mrs. Willcox, it’s different! She runs and 
grabs Rags’s hat and coat and pushes a worn chair 
back of the curtains on the sly, and generally acts as 
flustered as if Rags was the Prince from Wales. This 
gets Judy’s goat and ruins my animal, especially when 


6o 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Rags acts as if this was only what was due him. 

‘‘I—ah—I wish to apologize for my conduct at the 
lake, Judy,” he says. “And Ini sorry for—ah—what 
I said to you, Galen. Your going into the water under 
the circumstances was very—ah—courageous, even if 
you were unable to be of the slightest assistance, and, 
in fact, had to be rescued yourself.” 

He had to tag that on at the end with a faint, nasty 
smile, to make it look to Mrs. Willcox like I’d kind of 
bungled things all up. But Judy looks agreeably sur¬ 
prised and kind of winks at me from behind him to 
take his outstretched hand. I didn’t want to—I know 
this fellow is simply stalling—but I shook hands. 

Then Rags sprang his real surprise. He offers me 
a job in his old man’s carpet factory, and he does it 
in a silky, politely insulting manner which would of 
made a starving beggar turn the offer down if he had 
breath left to refuse! Looking past me, like I’m a 
horse, or the like, he’s talking about, he tells Mrs. 
Willcox I’ll have a opportunity to learn a good trade in 
the carpet mill and not be a “unskilled laborer” like I 
am now. He thinks he might get me ten or twelve a 
week to start. Not in the office —oh, no! I haven’t 
got enough schooling for that, and then they have to be 
—ah—particular—but in the mill. 

The high and mighty tone of his voice gets me red¬ 
headed! I can read faces better than Judy or her 
mother—I've saw more, for one thing—and I know 
Rags is simply doing all this to devil me. He knows 
darn well I wouldn’t be obligated to him for as much 
as the correct time, but he’s making plenty display be- 



THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


61 


fore Judy and her mother. He goes over very big with 
Mrs. Willcox, for she immediately tells me I’m getting 
the chance of a lifetime and I’ll be crazy not to take it. 

Even Judy seems to think that way too, telling me— 
in one quick whisper which sent my heart pumping like 
a hydraulic drill—that she don’t want me to go away. 
But I licked that temptation before it got its hands up. 
I wasn’t going to be buried in no Drew City carpet 
factory before I’d had a chance to see for myself am 
I a false alarm or do I mean something! So I thanked 
Rags as polite as I could, but I says I got something 
better in view. Then I says good night all around and 
went up to my room. 

The next morning, after I pack, I went down to the 
Commercial House, and for one solid hour me and 
Nate Shapiro argued each other black in the face. 
Only by flatly refusing to leave Drew City with him do 
I finally get what I’m after. I got a hundred bucks 
from him and. mailed it to Mrs. Willcox in a plain 
envelope, with nothing to show who it come from. 
So that was that. 

Well, Drew City’s only thirty-eight miles from New 
York, and I figured I can maybe run down for Sun¬ 
days. I promised to write Spence every few days and 
let him know how they’re breaking for me, and then 
I go back to the house for the big farewell to Judy and 
her mother. Now that Mrs. Willcox seen I was de¬ 
termined to go, why, she cried a little bit and actually 
kissed me on the forehead, saying she had come to 
look on me like a son. And even though she thought 
I was making a big mistake, she hoped I had all kinds 


62 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


of good luck and would be a good boy in New York 
as I had been whilst I lived in her house. 

Well, I’m kind of upset myself. Mrs. Willcox had 
always been nice to me, but I never thought she'liked 
me like that, and darned if I don’t begin gulping and 
wiping my own eyes. I think maybe if Judy had asked 
me right at that minute to stay I might of chucked the 
whole thing! But Judy don’t come in till after Mrs. 
Willcox had gave me a little Bible with my name in 
it and a homemade strawberry shortcake to take to 
New York with me, because she knows I’m crazy about 
it the way she makes it. Then Judy come along. 

Girls change their feelings like you change a collar! 
From the way she acted the day before I think I’m 
sitting pretty. She couldn’t of been nicer, but now 
it’s different. Before I can say a word she tells me 
very sarcastic it’s too bad I don’t find Drew City at¬ 
tractive enough to suit my exacting taste, and she 
hopes I have a nice time in New York. I says I don’t 
expect to have a nice time or a nice anything till I see 
her again, but that I got to go where I’ll get a chance. 
I took hold of her hand and says to please not be sore 
at me for leaving, and that some day maybe I’d be able 
to buy Drew City and give it to her to play with. But 
Judy says I could of done as well there as anywhere, 
and that’s just a excuse to get away. 

To change the subject, I ask her will she give me one 
of her pictures. She says am I afraid I will forget 
what she looks like, and I’m nervous anyways and that 
puts on the finishing touches! I was going to ask her 
would she kiss me good-bye and I’d of probably got 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 63 

slapped in the face, but now I just tipped my cap and 
blew. 

I’m still thinking about her and what a sap I was to 
leave that way, when me and knockout Kelly and Nate 
Shapiro gets into New York at noon. Two hours later 
Judy and everything else has been knocked out of my 
head for the time being at least. Nate has me put on 
the gloves at Lefty Mullen’s gym with Knockout 
Kelly, and I learned about boxing from him! 

It come about like this: After we get our suit cases 
parked in a hotel on Sixth Avenue, we go up to this 
gym, where lots of fighters around New York trains. 
Nate wants to see how I strip and if I know anything 
at all about using my hands. Well, he gets me a pair 
of red swimming shoes, and laces on the first pair of 
boxing gloves I ever wore in my life. In ring togs, 
Knockout Kelly is standing by watching me, with a 
terrible scowl on his face. All the ways up in the train 
he ain’t said a word to me nor I to him. Knockout 
Kelly’s real name is Mendal Nussbaum, and when 
stripped for action he’s certainly one tough-looking 
baby, for a fact! Even though I did knock him down 
a couple of days before, I can’t help feeling how much 
better it would be for me if we was both friends. 

Nate finally calls him over. 

“See what he’s got,” he says to him, nodding to me. 
“^o playin’ rough—just feel the kid out. If you de¬ 
liberately crash him, K. O., I’ll see ’at you git the 
same!” 

Kelly just grunts, sizing me up with his beady little 
red eyes. Nate pulls out his watch. “Less go!” he says. 


64 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


I could see and feel how awkward I was the minute 
Kelly put up his hands. He stuck out his left glove, 
and it connected with my nose, bringing salty water 
out of both my eyes. Then his right thudded into my 
stomach, and I commence to feel terrible sick. Kelly 
stepped in and clinched with me, roughing me around 
while he whispers hoarsely in my ear: “That’s just 
for a starter, you big yokel! I’m gonna slap you for 
a Chinese ash can and send you back to that slab in 
Jersey on a shutter!” 

Up to that time I hadn’t been a bit sore. I didn’t 
mind getting hurt. I expected to at first, knowing 
nothing at all about the fine points of the game. But 
this kind of stuff’s different! I wrenched away from 
Kelly and swung my left glove at his jaw. He ducked 
his head and I missed a mile. Then he come up grin¬ 
ning under my arms, landing both his hands to my face 
—hard. I think I see a opening and I drive my right 
hand into it. It hit the air, and the next thing I know 
I am sitting on the floor, which for some reason is 
going around and around and around! 

“Time!” hollers Shapiro and bends over me, dousing 
me with a wet sponge. “I hope ’at showed you some¬ 
thin’, kid,” he says. “Never lead with your right— 
it leaves you wide open for the other guy’s counter. 
Y’see, Kelly just stepped aside and dropped you with a 
left hook. Well, ’at’s all for now!” 

“You better keep that baby in a hothouse!” snarls 
Kelly, looking terrible disappointed. “He’ll never get 
nowheres. He’s got a glass jaw and he’s as yellah as 
all the lemons in the world!” 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 65 

“Shut up!” bawls Shapiro, pushing him away. “I’m 

if 

I’m on my feet by this time and the dizziness has 
went. My jaw’s so sore I can hardly close my mouth, 
but that “yellah” stuff set me ablaze! All the things 
which had happened to me in the last two days comes 
to a head. Getting pinched, doing that fool dive into 
the lake, having Rags Dempster lord it over me, leav¬ 
ing Drew City, and Judy’s cold good-bye. Now this 
guy calls me “yellah” and likewise knocks me flat. 
Too much! I ain’t figuring on starting my climb to 
the top this way. My mouth is twitching into a silly 
grin, like it always does when I’m crazy mad. I can’t 
control that to save my soul, and that nervous flicker¬ 
ing of my lips seems to make a lot of people think I’m 
faint-hearted. I pushed the surprised Shapiro away 
and stood in front of the leering Kelly. 

“Put up your hands!” I snarls, as tough as him. 

Then the fun began. 

Kelly sent a wicked smash at my face, but I expected 
this one and kind of clumsily ducked it. It only hit 
me a glancing blow, but they was force enough in it 
to knock me aside, and the next punch, catching me off 
balance, floored me again. I bounced right up, but 
I’m goofy, for a fact! They’s at least three sneering 
Kellys in front of me, the way it looks to me. He 
stepped in close again and—well, it just rains boxing 
gloves on my face and body. I don’t know how many 
times I hit the mat, whatever it was it was enough! 

I know the last time I crawled to my feet I happened 
to glance at my heaving chest and I see it’s splattered 


s 



66 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


with blood, I guess from my face, which feels like I 
been hit with a broken bottle. Out of the corner of my 
right eye I see part of my nose swelled up like a cab¬ 
bage. I can’t breathe through it at all. My left eye 
is closed tight. But they’s a few marks on Knockout 
Kelly too. His lips is puffed and a red trickle’s coming 
from one ear. Oh, this box fighting is no child’s play. 
Whatever I made at it, I earned! 

Kelly seems to be hitting me almost whenever and 
wherever he wants, but I feel his blows is getting 
weaker. I don’t hit the floor no more than that terrible 
left glove of his socks against my chin. I’m only past¬ 
ing him once to ten of his, and then only by dum luck. 
Yet when I do land on him, he doubles up and grunts 
and his breath’s coming in gasps. 

Then for the first time I caught him fair and square 
on his concrete jaw, and he went down on his back 
with a crash. My hand feels num. I hear Shapiro 
and some other people yelling, but I can’t believe 
they’re in the gym, their voices sound so far away. 

Kelly stays a long time on one knee, it seems to me, 
and then’s he’s on his feet, and I let him hit me three 
or four times without even trying to clock the punches. 
What’s the use? I don’t know enough about the game 
to block him, anyways. I’m willing to take these wal¬ 
lops to get one more in on his jaw. I see another 
chance and I let go with both hands, first the left and 
then the right. 

My left caught him on the bridge of his nose and I 
felt it give, and then, to my great surprise, Kelly’s face 
turns a bright red all over and it even goes down to his 


THE KNIGHT IN GALE 


67 


white trunks—like he’d stood under a shower com¬ 
posed of grape juice! My right glove socked him 
over the heart and he fell in toward me, his hands 
dropping down at his sides. Honest, he’s laying on me 
like a dead man. 

Some voices hollers “Finish him, kid!” and now that 
I think of it afterward, I’m sorry to say I pushed him 
off and tried to do just what the voices said! 

But you want to remember that Kelly had beaten 
and battered me around that gym till I was no more 
the Gale Galen of Drew City than I am Prince of 
Wales. As I shoved Kelly off he managed to land a 
weak punch just on the line of my belt. I took care¬ 
ful and deliberate aim at his jaw and was just going 
to let go when Nate Shapiro grabbed me around the 
waist and pulled me to one side. Knockout Kelly 
slumped half to the floor in the arms of two other 
fellows. 

“Feel hurt anywheres inside, kid?” says Nate 
anxiously in my ear. They’s a crowd around me. 
Somebody says: “Who is he?” Shapiro says, very 
proud: “Six-Second Smith, ’at’s who he is!” 

“I ain’t hurt inside or anywheres else either!” I 
says, shaking myself. “How long was we fighting—a 
couple of hours?” 

“I guess it seems ’at way!” grins Nate, running his 
hands all over me, like a doctor looking for breaks. 
“You stepped four and a half minutes with the tough¬ 
est egg in his class. Kelly’s got a draw with the 
champ. Sweet Papa, if you only knew somethin’! 
Well, I’ll fix ’at part of it. You got a heart and you 


68 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


can sock—I’ll teach you to know your right glove from 
the time-keeper, and if we don’t cop the title in a year 
I’ll quit managin’ pugs and go to work!” 

Kelly comes stumbling over at this minute and 
growls at Shapiro: 

“What did you stop it for ? They was nobody hurt! 
I wasn’t out. I was stallin’—you didn’t have to save 
me!” 

“You, you big boloney?” sneers Shapiro, draping a 
bathrobe around me like I’m a cracked race horse. 
They’s two fellows rubbing me with oil. “I wasn’t 
even thinkin’ of you! I didn’t want this boy to break 
his hands on you—he ain’t got no bandages on. D’ye 
think he’s yellah now?” 

Knockout Kelly grins kind of sheepish. Then he 
reaches down and shakes my glove. “It’s all fun, 
ain’t it, kid?” he says through his puffed lips. “I think 
the two of us could lick any sixty cops in the world, 
how ’bout it? Cheese, but you got a sweet right!” 

“And, cheese, but you got a sweet left!” I says, shak¬ 
ing his glove. 


ROUND THREE 


“six-second smith” 

Three months of my sentence was up and I had 
three months more to serve when I got time off for 
good behavior. No, I ain’t been in jail, though I might 
as well of been for all the liberty I got. Out of bed, 
6.30 a. m. In bed, 9 p. m. In between, work like a 
field hand, with a couple of scowling, bull-necked 
huskies ready to climb my back the second I showed 
signs of dogging it. 

I been training for my first professional box fight. 

Where this scuffle was going to take place, how 
many rounds and how much I was going to get for 
doing my stuff, was all mysteries to me for a long time. 
I didn’t even know who I was going to battle till a few 
days before the fight. These little details was in the 
hands of Nate Shapiro, and it’s exactly as easy to get 
information out of Nate as it is to get sunburned in 
a coal mine. 

While I’m training for my first brawl in a ring, I 
sit up reading till almost midnight as usual, with the 
keyhole plugged and a rug stuffed under the door, so’s 
if Nate happens to pass my room he won’t see the light. 
If he’d had any idea that I wasn’t pounding my ear, 
he’d been fit to be tied. Nate ain’t much of a reader. 


69 


70 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


* 


A telephone book, a bank book and The Police Gazette , 
about makes up Nate’s library. But it was different 
here. I am a reading fool! I wade through everything 
I can get my hands on, from newspapers to encyclo¬ 
pedias, making all stops in between. I gulp ’em all 
down raw, with a dictionary as a chaser. If it wasn’t 
for that dictionary most of these books could be in 
code, for all / could read ’em. But with Mr. Webster’s 
famous novel by my side, I’m all set. When I stumble 
across words which I have never been intimate with, 
like “obsolete” and “exchequer,” for example, why, 
all I got to do is open up my dictionary and form what 
I hope will be a lifelong acquaintance with ’em. I met 
twenty or thirty new words a night in that way alone. 
Especially “triapsidal,” which is anything having three 
apsis and of course everybody knows what a apsis. 

Maybe you think it’s funny for a young fellow who 
was going to be a prize fighter to spend as much time 
studying bright books as he did studying right hooks. 
Well, the answer to that one is that I was only going 
to be in the ring till I’d enough jack to get two things 
—a schooling and a line on what my trick was, to the 
viz, what was the game I was born to win at? Fellows 
has fought for girls, for money, for revengeance, for 
notoriety, and for fun. I fought for a education! 

In the eighteen years I’d been trying to discover what 
it’s all about, I’d tried my hand at nearly everything but 
selling palm-leaf fans at the North Pole. I couldn’t 
pick my jobs—I had bid teacher good-by too soon. So 
I took ’em as they come along, hating ’em all, quitting 
whenever I got a chance to think too long about ’em 


“SIX-SECOND SMITH’' 


7 i 


and getting canned whenever the boss got a chance to 
think too long about me. But I made up my mind to 
stick in the fight game till I got enough jack together 
to educate myself and eat while I was doing it. Even 
if I couldn’t get no college degree, if opportunity ever 
knocked at my door I at least wanted to be able to carry 
on a conversation with it! 

I learned a good deal from Shapiro and Knockout 
Kelly, as far as that part of it goes. None of their 
teachings would help me pass the entrance examina¬ 
tions for Harvard, but they did me a world of good in 
the school I was entering then. Fighters may be born, 
but boxers is made! 

For three monotonus months my daily routine, with 
Nate holding a watch on me, started off with a three 
to five mile trot on the road every morning, wearing 
three heavy wool sweaters so’s I’d perspire off weight. 
I had a terrible time keeping inside the welter weight 
limit, 145 lbs. I hadn’t stopped growing yet and this 
daily exercise was filling out my chest and muscles till 
Nate put me on a diet like I’m a chorus girl. After 
the cross-country run comes a cold shower, than I flop 
out on a table and a husky dinge rubber sprinkles me 
fluently with a mixture of oil of wintergreen and 
eucaliptus and commences to slowly knead me like 
dough, working up speed gradually till at the windup 
he’s patting and slapping me till the noise sounds like 
a couple of crazy motorcycles chasing a runaway horse 
on a cement pavement. When he got through I’d feel 
like I had acted as the pavement! Then comes punch¬ 
ing a sack filled with sand, which Nate said weighs 250 


7 2 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


pounds, but which I’m satisfied weighed that many 
tons, especially after I’d slugged it for about twenty 
minutes. Then me and Kayo Kelly and Two-Punch 
Jackson throwed the medicine ball around till Nate 
blew the whistle on that. Next I yanked some weighted 
pulleys back and forth, then shadow boxing, where you 
act like you was a cuckoo and trade rights and lefts 
with the air, then skipping rope, and, after a rest, a 
few rounds of light sparring with Knockout Kelly and 
sometimes Two-Punch Jackson, which was fifty 
pounds heavier than me, but called my right hook to 
the jaw “the cat’s cuffs!” 

Nate said the worst fault I had then was the habit 
of leading with my right hand instead of with my left. 
He spent weeks trying to break me of it, hours drum¬ 
ming into my ears, “Lead with a straight left—then 
hook your right!” over and over again. 

“You got a heart and you can sock!” says Nate, 
stopping my workout one day, “but you telegraph the 
other guy everything you’re going to do. The worst 
preliminary boloney which ever rubbed a shoe in rosin 
would drop you for the count when you lead wit’ ’at 
right of yours! Your left hand’s about as much use 
to you as a pair of dancing pumps would be to a shad. 
Well, I’ll fix ’at to-morrow!” 

The next day, Nate begins tieing my right hand be¬ 
hind my back and making me spar with the left only. 
I took plenty punishment from some highly-tickled 
handlers for awhile, but at the end of a few days I 
had uncovered a left jab which afterwards was poison 
to many’s the good boy. 


“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 


73 


Well, I came back to Drew City and I brung Kayo 
Kelly and Nate Shapiro with me. We all camped at 
Mrs. Willcox’s boarding house and everybody was 
happy. The three of us being there meant more jack 
for that dear old lady every week and Nate and Kayo 
don’t like living in the nearest thing they've had to a 
home since they been kids any more than they like their 
right eyes. Try to tell Mrs. Willcox that prize fighters 
is no good! We couldn't do enough for her and she 
couldn’t do enough for us. She wasn’t in the position 
to afford no hired help, and Judy, which was then go¬ 
ing to Drew City Prep, is kept pretty busy with her 
lessons and the etc. Well, me and Kayo and Nate is 
the official maids and hired men. We all took turns in 
washing the dishes, peeling potatoes, chopping wood, 
tending the lawn, house cleaning, and like that. We 
wouldn’t let her do nothing. I wish you could of saw 
Knockout Kelly, one of the toughest boys which ever 
laced on a glove, out in Mrs. Willcox’s kitchen with a 
gingham apron tied around him, washing dishes and 
liking it! Or the hard-boiled Nate Shapiro shaking a 
wisked dust cloth in the parlor, after I have went 
through it with a broom and tea-leaves. Kayo Kelly 
said he bet he’d make a swell housewife for somebody 
after he got through with the ring. 

Of course, the main reason I come back to Drew 
City was because of Judy. I was so crazy over Judy 
Willcox that half the time I didn’t know if I was afoot 
or horseback! 

I ain’t two days back in New York after I went away 
with Nate, when I get a letter from her and her 


74 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


picture, too. After reading the letter about a dozen 
times and looking at her picture for a half hour even, I 
felt like rushing right back to her and Drew City and 
leaving prize fighting flat on its back! But common 
sense and Nate Shapiro prevented me. On Judy’s 
picture she wrote: “To Gale Galen, from Judy Willcox, 
his friend and well wisher.” So I had my picture took 
by a swell Third Avenue photographer, in my ring 
togs, and I wrote on it: “To Judy Willcox, from Six- 
Second Smith, her friend and well wisher and admirer 
and promising contender for the world’s welterweight 
championship.” 

After that, letters between us flew back and forth 
like seagulls. But while all Judy’s notes is full of best 
wishes and hopes that I’ll be a great man some day and 
remember Lincoln started life as a lowly rail-splitter 
and wound up as President and the etc. why they is very 
little mention of “My Darling Gale” or “Your Loving 
Sweetheart, Judy” in any of ’em. In fact, they is no 
mention of that at all. If I had a boy friend named 
Judy, why the letters could of been from him as far as 
hugs and kisses is concerned. Once she sent me a 
list of books to get so’s to “stimulate my imagination.” 
I got ’em all and read most of ’em, with the kind 
assistance of my dictionary. I even give one of ’em, 
Huckleberry Finn, to Knockout Kelly to read, but 
after a while he give it back to me and says: “Not so 
good!” I asked him why and he says they ain’t no 
pictures in it. 

In all Judy’s letters she kept kind of hinting that 
while she thinks I’m a nice fellow and all that business, 


“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 


75 


why, I am not exactly making myself solid with her by 
staying away from Drew City. This made me the bit 
uneasy and then I got some letters from Spence Brock 
which puts on the finishing touches, you might say. 
Spence writes that the first time I go to the post in New 
York, his gang from Drew City Prep will have ring¬ 
side seats to see me do my stuff and likewise that he’s 
positive I will knock my adversus for a Japanese mock 
turtle. That’s fine and I get quite a kick out of know¬ 
ing that when I step into the ring for my first pro¬ 
fessional fight, no matter if all the rest of the crowd 
gives me the razzberry, why they’ll be at least two 
guys pulling for me—Spence Brock and myself. But 
what’s much more interesting to me in Spence’s letter 
is the news that Rags Dempster seems to be sitting 
pretty with Judy and her mother. He almost lives at 
the house, says Spence, and right then and there I get 
all fed up on New York! It wasn’t hard to get Nate 
and Kayo to see things my way. Kayo wa9 about 
winding up his training for his bout with Jackie 
Frayne and when him and Nate was in Drew City be¬ 
fore they rented a barn for training quarters, charged 
ten cents admission and packed ’em in to see Kayo work 
out. 

“With you, a native son, you might say, and Kayo, 
working out down in ’at slab together,” says Nate to 
me, “I’ll crack the yokels for three jitneys a head and 
take in nickels like a conductor. Less go!” 

And that’s what we done. 

Judy seems to be tickled silly that I’m back at her 
house and Mrs. Willcox made the same type of fuss 


76 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


over me like as if I was her only son, back from the 
wars and the etc. I’m kind of leary as to what she and 
Judy will say with the regards to Kayo Kelly and Nate 
Shapiro as candidates for boarders, as you know what 
some people thinks of prize fighters, but they both 
seem willing to take a chance and afterwards they’re 
glad they did. Mrs. Willcox said we cheered the old 
house up and made her feel young again and it re¬ 
minded her of years ago when she had a big family 
and they was all home. This generally made her begin 
to weep, because all that family had drifted away from 
her except Judy, which was the baby, and they’re either 
dead or scattered all over the country. All she ever 
hears from ’em is New Year’s and Easter cards and 
maybe a lace handkerchief by mail at Xmas. Well, 
whenever this comes up, I pat her on the shoulder and 
Nate and Kayo Kelly rushes to the old piano in the 
parlor. In some way, Nate has mastered the mysteries 
of piano playing and Knockout Kelly throats a wicked 
semi-glycerine tenor. So the three of us does some 
close harmony on “Silver Threads Amongst the Gold,” 
“My Old Kentucky Home,” and like that, generally 
winding up with something good and jazzy. Our com¬ 
bination was a sure-fire gloom chaser and that’s a 
fact! 

About the second day I’m back at Mrs. Willcox’s 
again, I find out another reason why she and Judy is 
glad to have us there. I’m talking to Mrs. Willcox 
before supper one night and it slips out in the conver¬ 
sation that Mrs. Willcox owes somebody a hundred 
bucks and our board bills is helping her save so much 


“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 


77 


a week to pay it back. She says the jack was sent to 
her in a plain envelope without no writing to show who 
it’s from, by somebody which knew she was short a 
century on a note due at The First National Bank. 
When Mrs. Willcox says she’s pretty sure who sent it, 
I made a excuse and ducked, as I am the baby which 
sent her that money. So now I think I won’t say a 
word to her till she has saved up the hundred, and then 
I’ll give her a wonderful surprise. I’ll write her a un¬ 
signed letter saying that the promising young prize 
fighter which loaned her the sugar says to keep it— 
and she’ll never know where it come from! 

A few nights later I happen to pass by the parlor on 
my ways upstairs to my room and Rags Dempster is in 
there talking to Mrs. Willcox. As I’m walking by the 
room he seen me and sneers. Then he tells Mrs. 
Willcox in a loud voice so’s I’ll hear it that he thinks 
she has made a mistake to take in U9 prize fighters with 
a young girl in the house. We ain’t a good influence 
for Judy, this fathead says. Why, the big stiff, I would 
of cut off my arm for Judy, and Nate and Kayo 
treated her like she was President Harding! I’m glad 
to say, though, that Mrs. Willcox stuck up for us, so 
that helped a little. But when I get to the top of the 
stairs there’s Judy just coming down and I get another 
jolt—a tough one! 

Calling Judy the prettiest girl in the wide, wide 
world is dismissing a million dollars with the remark 
that it’s nice money. Judy begins being beautiful 
where Venus left off! 

I ain’t really had a chance to see her alone for more 


78 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


than a few minutes up to this time and as I had some¬ 
thing very important to ask her, I stopped her. A few 
hours before I had arranged with Spence Brock to 
borrow his racing car for a couple of hours to take 
Judy for a ride. Spence would loan me both his ears 
and one hand if I asked him. So all I got to get now 
is Judy. 

“Can I speak to you for a minute, Judy?” I says. 

“Why, of course, Gale,” she smiles, making my heart 
jump till it would of frightened a doctor. “As many 
minutes as you want.” 

“You don’t seem to want to see much of me any 
more,” I says, thinking of Rags waiting in the parlor. 
“I guess I’ve about wore out, hey?” 

She goes to work and pinches my arm, but never¬ 
theless why does her face get red ? 

“Don’t be silly!” she says. “I like you immensely, 
Gale, and you know it—or you should. I’m awfully 
glad you’re back and I hope, that is, I’m glad you’ve 
made up your mind to stay. I—we missed you 
terribly.” 

She looks away from me, playing with the lace on 
her sleeve. A wild idea come to me to tell her how 
cuckoo I am over her and get either kissed or canned, 
but in any event be done with it! Then I think of that 
dizzy sap downstairs! 

“I bet you missed me,” I says. “With Rags Demp¬ 
ster hanging around like-” 

Judy leaves go a little exclamation which sounds 
like she expected me to say something entirely differ¬ 
ent and she’s highly disappointed. She cut me off short. 



“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 79 

“When are you going to have your first boxing 
match?” she asks me. 

“Next Saturday night in Brooklyn,” I says. “Nate 
Shapiro just told me today and you’re the first one 
I’m telling. I’m going to fight a fellow called ‘Red’ 
Johns, in a six-round preliminary to the Kayo Kelly— 
Jackie Frayne battle.” 

“Oh, Gale, you will be careful, won’t you?” says 
Judy, suddenly grabbing my arm. “What a horrible 
name—‘Red’ Johns!” 

“Wait till he hears mine,” I says. “Six-Second 
Smith!” 

Judy smiles with me. 

“Well, at any rate, please try not to get hurt and— 
and—if you call me up as soon as the bout is over and 
tell me how you came out, I’ll wait up Saturday night 
for the call!” 

“As a special favor to you, Judy,” I says, “I will 
certainly try not to get hurt, and that ain’t changing 
my original plans much, at that! And I’ll sure phone 
you Saturday night after the massacre; win, lose, or 
draw—if I’m able. But if you really like me, Judy, 
why do you let Rags Dempster-” 

No use! Judy derails me again. 

“What did you do with that list of books I sent 
you to New York, and told you to read?” she 
butts in, pickin’ up a book from the table. “Lost it, 
I’ll bet.” 

“Well, you’d lose!” I says, and I pull her list out 
of my coat pocket. “Judy, if a five-year-old kid would 
begin piling on top of each other the books I’ve read 



8 o 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


since I left here, he’d be three hundred years old and 
in Betelguese when he laid the last one down!” 

Judy laughs till it’s a wonder Rags didn’t hear her 
downstairs, and I hope he did. 

“The ones I liked best,” I goes on, checking over the 
list, “was ‘The Three Musketeers,’ ‘Martin Eden,’ 
‘Poe’s Tales,’ ‘Sherlock Holmes,’ and ‘Huckleberry 
Finn,’ Like ’em? I love ’em! I look on them books 
as my pals and I’ll read ’em again and again. I’d as 
soon part with them as I would with my knees, 
especially that ‘Huckleberry Finn’!” 

“I thought you’d like that one,” says Judy. “Now 
you must read ‘Tom Sawyer,’ another one of Mark 
Twain’s, and-” 

“I’m going to read every story Mr. Mark Twain 
writes, as fast as they come out!” I interrupt. “Be¬ 
lieve me, he tells a dude of a yarn. I’ve been boasting 
him to all my friends, because a man which can write 
like that deserves some encouragement!” 

At this point Judy goes right off into a fit of laugh¬ 
ing, which they do hear downstairs, and her mother 
calls her. 

“Gale,” she says, with her hand on my arm. “Eh— 
don’t—don’t say that about Mark Twain to anyone 
else—that—Oh, about encouraging him. Mark Twain 
is immortal!” 

“There was nothing out of the way in the book I 
read,” I says. 

“Not immoral, immortal!” says Judy, getting up, 
still giggling. “And now I must go, Gale, or mother 
will be angry. Keep on reading good books. They 



“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 


81 


will help you immensely now, and, later, when you’ve 
begun to make big money at your present profession, 
you can get yourself a tutor—some one to teach you and 
lay out a regular course of reading for you—history, 
fiction, essays, and all that sort of thing. I’ll help 
you study, myself, whenever I have time, especially 
during vacation this summer. Oh, I do want you to 
be a success, Gale!” she adds, suddenly serious. “And 
I know you will! It’s written all over your face. As 
you’ve said, there’s too much fighting blood in you for 
you to give in to the handicap of your lack of educa¬ 
tion—you’ll never remain a prize fighter, Gale, never 
in this world. Some day I bet you’ll be the biggest man 
I know; and oh—how proud I’ll be of you. Why, I’m 
proud of you now, for trying.” 

At that minute I wouldn’t of changed places with 
Mr. J. D. Rockefeller. The next second I would of 
changed places with one of his oil cans. Such is 
girls! 

I ask Judy will she take a ride with me, telling her 
Spence had loaned me his car. For a instant her face 
lights all up, and then she bites her lips and says she’s 
terrible sorry, but she can’t go. She’s already got a 
date with Rags Dempster! While I’m kind of reeling 
back against the banister and wondering if all my 
life this Rags is going to come between me and what I 
want, I hear Judy explaining that some of the students 
of Drew City Prep is putting on a play at the school 
auditorium, and, as all the gang is supposed to go, she 
had accepted a invitation from Rags. More because 
she really must be nice to him than because she wants 


6 


82 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


to go!” is how she puts it, and then she squeezes- my 
hand and blows. 

Well, I sit down on the dark stairway, and it ain’t no 
darker than my chances looks with Judy Willcox! Still 
and all, why should she bother with me ? I ain’t got a 
nickel and I don’t mean nothing. Rags Dempster is 
the only son of a millionaire. What a chump Judy’d 
be to even hesitate over a choice there, hey ? But I 
can’t get through my head what she means by saying 
she “really must be nice to him!” Then a thought hits 
me which made me absolutely sick, no fooling. Sup¬ 
pose—suppose Judy and Rags is engaged! 

I don’t remember getting my hat or even going out, 
but the next thing I know I am walking along the 
street like I’m in a trance. I feel like the whole world 
has come to a end and I’m the only one left. I’m very 
much surprised when I look in the mirror of the weigh¬ 
ing machine outside Ajariah Stubbs’s drug store and 
see that I ain’t as grey-headed as old Ajariah him¬ 
self ! 

Stopping in Kale Yackley’s cigar store, I got a New 
York paper and turned to the sporting page to see if 
they’s anything there about my coming battle with Red 
Johns. A column headed “Frayne and Kelly Await 
Gong,” catches my eye. It’s all about how Kayo Kelly 
has wound up his training at Drew City and Jackie 
Frayne has knocked off work up in the Bronx, and 
both “leading contenders for the welterweight title” 
is on edge for the big fight. The semi-windup will be 
Battling Young vs. Kid Neil, middleweights. The 
rest of the card, says the paper, will be composed of 


“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 83 

four six-round preliminaries. That’s all it says. Not; 
so much as a mention of my name. 

And then I get it. I’m going to be in one of them 
six-round preliminaries; and whoinell is interested in 
the name of a preliminary boy? It seemed to me that’s 
what I’d been all my life—just a preliminary boy! 
Well, I determine that I’m going to enter one of Life’s 
Main Events some day, and whether I get knocked cold 
or not is of much less interest to me than whether 
I get the bout! 

Thinking like this, I spread the paper out on Kale’s 
show case, and it’s full of this radio business which 
the country has went double-cuckoo over. Call XZX, 
clamp the receiver over your ear and get everything 
from the baseball scores to grand opera, right out of 
the air! The guy which 'doped that out was the spar¬ 
row’s chirp, what ? How is it I can’t figure out some¬ 
thing like that? I think I’m beginning to get the Drew 
City Blues again, so I tossed the paper away and 
stepped out in the street. Then, of a sudden, I decide 
to go around to Stubbs’s drug store and see how old 
Ajariah is making out since I left him, by request. 

Now here comes a funny thing. When I went into 
Ajariah’s drug store that night, the old man is so dis¬ 
gusted with the way business has fell off that he’s 
about ready to sell the joint for a plugged nickel. A 
w r eek after that you couldn’t of bought that place for 
fifteen thousand bucks! And it was me which give old 
Ajariah the big idea which turned his store into a gold 
mine. Believe me, that set me thinking! If I could 
do that for Ajariah, why couldn’t I dope out something 


8 4 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


to put myself over ? Or even go around to stores which 
is on their last legs like Ajariah’s was and sell ’em a 
idea which would bring the business? I thought this 
worth looking into and don’t think I didn’t give myself 
a crack at it, either. I didn’t work all the time with 
nothing but my hands, just because I was a box fighter 
then! 

I found Ajariah back in the prescription room, 
taking inventory to kill time. He looks gloomy and 
worried and about ten years older than when I last 
seen him, which must of made him about ^56 years of 
age. Greeting me with a grunt, he peers suspiciously 
at me over his glasses. At first, talk comes hard. But 
finally Ajariah seems glad to get his troubles off his 
chest to somebody, so he sits down on a stool and we 
have quite a fanning bee. While he’s talking I look 
around the deserted store and see plenty proof of hard 
luck. The soda fountain which I used to keep polished 
till the sparkle hurt your eye, is tarnished and sadly 
neglected. The crushed fruit sirups has all fermented 
in dirty glass bowls. The long mirror back of the 
counter where the bunch from Drew City Prep used to 
flirt with each other—and with me—is fly-specked and 
clouded. The whole joint is on the bum, for a fact! 
When Ajariah growls that he ain’t taking in enough 
jack to pay his ice bill, I believe him. He says he can’t 
understand it—but I can. 

In the first place, Ajariah Stubbs knows as much 
about running a soda fountain as I do about running 
a submarine. He can draw a glass of root beer and 
that lets him out. When I worked for him I kept the 


‘‘SIX-SECOND SMITH” 


85 


fountain decorated with fresh fruits and bottles of 
stuff which would catch the eye and I was always 
thinking up new drinks with fancy names, even naming 
some of ’em after particularly good customers, which, 
of course, tickled ’em. I tried to sell the world the 
idea that it was thirsty and that the stuff I had on tap 
was the kitten’s vest when it come to quenching. But 
when I left, the mob from the prep school stopped com¬ 
ing in, because Ajariah wouldn’t go out of his way to 
hold their trade. He liked to be what he calls “inde¬ 
pendent.” About the only time you can be indepen¬ 
dent and be in business too is if you got maybe the only 
fire extinguisher to sell there is in Hades! 

Ajariah’s biggest mistake was looking on his soda 
fountain as being about the same kind of a accommo¬ 
dation for his customers as keeping postage stamps. 
Before he realized that the fountain was his biggest 
money maker, he had killed it dead. 

Well, in a few minutes, Ajariah is offering me my 
old job back at fourteen fish a week—two dollars more 
than I got before. I told him I was now “Six-Second 
Smith,” the welterweight, and my soda-jerking days 
was over, but I’d see if I couldn’t figure something to 
help him. I should of been off Ajariah for life, as 
far as that part of it goes, because he was always riding 
me when I worked for him and he fired me without a 
second’s notice. But Ajariah’s a old man and he’s up 
against it, so why should I rub it in? 

I’m sitting there thinking just what would build 
Ajariah’s trade up again, when all of a sudden a idea 
hits me smack between the eyes. Ajariah’s droning 


86 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


away about hard times, when I cut him off sharp and 
made him listen to me for half a hour. That New 
York paper I seen in Kale Yackley’s cigar store gives 
me the scheme and I passed it along to Ajariah. I 
told him to have a radio-receiving set, with one of them 
big horns on it, hooked up in his store. Then every 
afternoon between, say, three and five, he could give 
free radio concerts to his customers from the broad¬ 
casting stations in Newark. It would be the first and 
only one in Drew City, and, of course, everybody’s 
read about radio and they’d be crazy to hear it. Any¬ 
thing new will draw a crowd—look at New York, for 
instance. After he gets his customers inside it’s up 
to Ajariah to make ’em buy, I tell him. For that pur¬ 
pose he wants to hire a first-class, big-town soda jerk, 
which composes a mean sirup and will mix a cruel 
drink. A ad in the Newark papers will do the trick. 
I even wrote on a piece of wrapping paper for Ajariah 
a couple of signs to have his soda man put up on the 
mirror back of the fountain: “Try a Radio Sundae!” 
and “Wireless Phosphate—Something New!” 

Well, Ajariah had his radio in four days later and 
the results made him think I got one ounce more brains 
than Edison. The Drew City “Sentinel” give the 
stunt a big write-up and curiosity done the rest. 
Pretty soon the natives start looking for places in the 
drug store as early as two o’clock in the afternoon, and 
—then buy! Besides the soda jerk he got from 
Newark, Ajariah had to hire Vince Neil to help him 
out. So that was that! 

Not long after this I find out just why Rags Demp- 


“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 


87 


ster is so unusually popular with Mrs. Willcox and 
what Judy meant by saying she “Really must be nice 
to him!” If this double-crossing boloney had been 
within punching distance when I got this information, 
why, he would of been a total loss inside of two 
minutes as sure as there’s water in Baffin’s Bay! Both 
Mrs. Willcox and Judy thought that Rags Dempster 
was the unknown guy which sent them the hundred 
bucks ta pay that note at the bank! Can you tie that? 
Here I go and put myself in hock to Nate Shapiro for 
more dough than I ever seen in my life so’s to help 
Mrs. Willcox out of a hole, and the only enemy I got 
in the wide, wide world gets the credit for it! If that 
ain’t a tough break, then neither was Battling Siki a 
tough break for Carpentier. It seems they have doped 
out that as Rags was the only one of their friends 
with money which might of knew they was in trouble, 
why, he must of been the one which sent the dough. 
They figure he kept his name off it so’s not to make 
’em feel they was charity patients and him being that 
thoughtful makes him extry nice. Why, this Rags 
wouldn’t give a dime to hear the inside story of why 
Washington stood up in that rowboat crossing the 
Delaware, let alone give anybody a hundred bucks! 
So when even Judy says she thinks it was very “gal¬ 
lant” of Rags to send her mother the money that way, 
why, I’m fit to be tied. I can see Judy’s pride’s hurt 
at taking money from anybody and that she’ll be 
tickled silly when they have saved the hundred to pay 
it back. I’m getting a pushing around and no mistake, 
but I get a little consolation when Judy says that Rags 


88 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Dempster’s the last person in the world she wants to 
be obligated to. I can easy imagine the advantage that 
false alarm would want to take of it. 

To show you what kind of a bozo this Rags was 
when both Judy and her mother accuses him of being 
the mysterious Santy Claus he don’t deny it. At first 
I thought maybe he had sent in a hundred, too, but 
when Mrs. Willcox shows me the envelope the dough 
come in I know different! 

Well, though I am overboard with rage, I don’t 
show Mrs. Willcox and Judy what a four-flusher Rags 
is, because that ain’t the way I work. The person I 
want to tell that to is Rags Dempster himself. So I 
go out looking for him without saying a word to no¬ 
body. That is, nobody but Lem Garfield. 

Passing the Elite Haberdashery I see Lem locking 
the front door and he calls to me to wait for him. 

“Make it snappy, Lem,” I says. “I’m looking for 
Rags Dempster and should I find him they’ll be plenty 
trouble!” 

“Humph!” says Lem. “A man in a hurry lookin’ 
for trouble is a man who’s sure goin’ to git service! 
Don’t have to look for it, feller kin sit right in his 
room and trouble’ll come to him. Too bad Mr. Oppor¬ 
tunity ain’t more like Mr. Trouble. They say oppor¬ 
tunity knocks once at every man’s door; goes away 
if yew don’t answer. Humph! Trouble don’t knock 
—Mr. Trouble bust down the door, and if yew ain’t in, 
he waits!” 

Then Lem wants to know why I’m gunning for Rags 
and because I’m just boiling over with the thing, I told 


“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 


89 


him. Right away, Lem changes from gents furnish¬ 
ings salesman into lawyer, jumping at the chance like 
he always does to turn loose a flock of legal terms. 
For about five minutes the air is full of ipso factor, 
in re, habeas corpse and non vult. That’s all apple¬ 
sauce to me, but as my counsel, Lem finally advises me 
to lay off Rags till Mrs. Willcox has saved the hundred 
bucks she thinks she owes him, and then if Rags takes 
the jack from her we can have him pinched for ob¬ 
taining money under false pretenses. 

“Can’t we do nothing to him now, for obtaining 
Judy Willcox’s friendship under false pretenses?” I 
says. “That’s what I’m interested in!” 

“Eh—not legally,” says Lem, pursing his lips to¬ 
gether like a judge. “I’m afraid the law wouldn’t 
recognize your, now, broken heart, as a corpus delicti! 
You’d have to-” 

“Blah!” I cuts him off. “I’ll make a corpus out 
of this Rags myself—maybe the law will recognize 
that! ,} 

Well, the law did recognize that, for a fact! Two 
hours later I am marching over to Judge Tuckerman’s 
court with Constabule Watson, and all the kids in 
Drew City is trailing after us. I am credited with 
assault and battery, to the viz., I socked Rags Demp¬ 
ster, and instead of tying into me like a man, why, he 
squawks for a cop. Me and Lem runs into Rags down 
near the railroad station. Rags tried to duck me, but 
I nailed him and politely asked him to tell Mrs. Willcox 
that she don’t have to pinch and squinch every week to 
get that hundred bucks together for him, because, as 


1 



90 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


the matter and fact, he never sent her a nickel. Rags 
gets red and wants to know how do I know whether 
he sent the money or not. I says because I am the guy 
which really done it! This stops him for a minute, 
then he busts out laughing and says I’ll have a fine 
time proving that, because the hundred was sent 
“anonymously”—whatever that is. So I tell him that 
I don’t want to prove nothing with the regards to my¬ 
self. For my part, Mrs. Willcox will never know 
where the sugar came from, but I want him to own 
up that he didn’t have nothing to do with it, so’s that 
Mrs. Willcox and Judy won’t feel that they’re under 
obligations to him. Well, Lem being there and hear¬ 
ing all this seems to steam Rags up. He lets forth a 
sneer and says where would a fellow like me ever get a 
hundred dollars? I says I borrowed it—which was 
true—but Rags says I’m just a tenth-rate liar and I 
probably stole the money from Ajariah Stubbs while I 
was working for him. 

I choked back some choice remarks which I wanted 
to make, and asked Rags to put up his hands. He says 
he wouldn’t lower himself, so I lowered him with a 
right hook to the jaw, placing it carefully so’s not to 
mark him. He’s a good two inches taller and fifteen 
pounds heavier than me—but soft, awful soft, and his 
heart’s made of dough. When he got up he blowed a 
police whistle, and that’s why I’m leading the parade 
to Judge Tuckerman’s with Constabule Watson. 

The first case before the judge that day is Lafe 
Weston, charged with selling bootleg in his near-beer 
saloon. 


“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 91 

“How d’ye plead?” growls Judge Tuckerman, 
squinting at Lafe over his cheaters. 

“Jedge,” says Lafe, wetting his lips with his tongue, 
“they ain’t been a drop of hard licker in my place since 
prohibition. This here’s nothin’ more or less than a put 
up job!” 

“Guilty, eh? I thot so!” barks the judge, paying 
no attention to Lafe’s indignant stare. “Where’s the 
evidence?” 

“Constabule Watson puts a bottle on the judge’s 
desk and the judge takes a good long drink. 

“Whoosh!” he says, making a terrible face and gulp¬ 
ing down about half the water in the pitcher in front of 
him “Whoosh!” He bangs on the desk with his gavel 
and Lafe trembles, “You old scoundrel!” bawls Judge 
Tuckerman, red in the face and trying to get his breath, 
“What d’ye mean by selling sich stuff as this—d’ye 
want to poison me? I fine ye-” 

Lafe’s so scared at the way the judge is gulping and 
gasping that he must of forgot where he’s at. He 
reaches in his pocket and pulls out a flask. 

“This here’s real stuff, Jedge!” he says eagerly, “I 


“Ha!” says Judge Tuckerman, grabbing the flask. 
“More evidence, hey?” He sniffs suspiciously at the 
flask, takes a long swallow and puts it down, smack¬ 
ing his lips. '‘Ah!” he says, clearing his throat and 
looking around the court room. Then his wandering 
eye falls on the anxious Lafe and he shoves one hand 
in his pants pocket. “Ah—ptu!” he says, kind of 
dreamy, “How much is that?” 




92 FIGHTING BLOOD 

« 

Lafe gives a start and everybody busts out laughing, 
which brings the judge back to himself. If his face 
was red before, you should of saw it now! “Order in 
the court!” he bawls, banging with his gavel. “What 
d’ye think this is—a theayter? One more cackle out 
of you idjits and I’ll fine the lot of ye for contempt! 
Lafe Weston, I fine ye fifty dollars and costs and don’t 
tell this court ye ain’t got no money, because that’s 
dern good licker and ye must be gettin’ fancy prices 
for it—if ye ain’t, your a dern fule!” 

Lafe paid up. 

Well, I’m next and I ain’t feeling any too good after 
seeing what a beating the judge give Lafe. 

Rags gets up and tells the judge he was walking 
down the street, minding his own business, when I 
rushed up and knocked him down. Not a word about 
what we was arguing over, or what he called me. 
Judge Tuckerman squints hard at Rags and then he 
scowls at me. 

“In trouble agin, heh?” he says. “What ye got to 
say for yourself this time?” 

“He called me a crook and a liar!” I says, still 
red-headed. 

“Are ye?” says Judge Tuckerman. “Answer yes 
or no!” 

I made a quick step toward the desk, but Lem Gar¬ 
field pulls me back. He tells Judge Tuckerman he’s 
my “attorney” and likewise a witness for me. Rags 
jumps up and hollers that Lem is a gents furnishing 
clerk and not no lawyer, and, besides, he can’t be my 
lawyer and a witness too. Rags was out of luck! The 


“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 


93 


judge likes Lem for what he done in the war. He’s 
one of the few which ain’t forgot. So Judge Tucker- 
man bangs on his desk with his gavel for silence. 
After he gets it he asks Lem how he’s feeling and did 
them new goloshes come in from the wholesale house 
yet, and then he tells him to present my case. When 
Lem gets through, the judge discharges me, glares at 
the trembling Rags, and soaks him the costs of my 
arrest. 

“I ought to commit ye to the State insane asylum!” 
says the judge to Rags while Rags is frisking himself 
for the fine. “For anybody which calls a prize fighter 
a crook and a liar to his face is either crazy or has a 
suicidal mania!” 

So that was all settled. 

Well, Spence Brock heard I was pinched and he came 
rushing down to see what he could do for me. Lem 
Garfield tells him what made me sock Rags and Spence 
tells Judy in school the next day. All about who sent 
her mother that life-saving hundred bucks and every¬ 
thing. When I come in from the training camp for 
supper that night Judy done everything but kiss me and 
Mrs. Willcox even done that! Rags comes around 
about eight o’clock to “explain” matters to Judy and 
she won’t even see him, but she sits out in the swing 
on the back porch with me and we talk over—lots of 
things. She wanted me to take the sixty-four bucks 
her mother had already saved up toward the hundred 
I loaned her, but I says to keep it, and if she will help me 
with my education this summer in exchange, I’ll feel 
I’m getting the best of it. So that’s what she done. 


94 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Well, the big day finally arrives when I am to step 
into a prize ring for the first time in my life. IT 1 
never forget it as long as I live, don’t think I will! 
The night before I went to bed at 8 p. m.—and fell 
asleep at 4 a.m. I got up for breakfast at 7.30, and 
in the three and a half hours I slept I fought this 
“Red” Johns a world’s series! In one of the imaginary 
battles I had with him, he knocked me down fifteen or 
twenty-one times, hitting me the last time with one 
of the ring posts. Rags Dempster was referee and 
Judy Willcox was one of my seconds. Some dream! 
Knockout Kelly slept like a top as usual and Nate had 
to drag him out of bed, though he was going to fight 
the same day. For Kayo’s fight with Jackie Frayne 
he’s guaranteed five thousand berries. I’m going to 
get a hundred and a half for displaying my wares in 
the first preliminary and they’s only seventy-five profit 
in it for me at that, as I got to slip Nate half. 

The day of the fight we went up to New York on the 
4.06 p. m. local and with us goes half of Drew City. 
Spence Brock and nearly all the fellows from the prep 
school comes along to root for me, with pennants and 
horns like they was going to a football game, except 
none of the girls is with ’em. I am trying to laugh 
and kid and act like taking part in a mere prize fight 
is nothing at all in my young life, but I’m as nervous 
as a cat on a picket fence. From the time I got up in 
the morning till the time I stepped into the ring, I feel 
like I’m on my way to the electric chair and that’s a 
fact! Every little thing which happens that day seems 
just like the stuff I’ve read in the papers about guys 



“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 


95 


which is going to be executed. For instance, at break¬ 
fast Nate makes the crack that they’s nothing wrong 
with my appetite, and I think of “The condemned 
man ate a hearty meal!” Then he makes me get my 
hair cut close so’s it won’t flop in my eyes when I’m 
in there trying, and that reminds me of how prisoners’ 
hair is cut when they’re going to be bumped off. Mrs. 
Willcox mentions me in saying Grace at lunch and I 
feel she’s praying for my soul, which is soon to leave 
me. If one church bell had tolled while I was on my 
way to the train, I think I would of fainted! 

Neither me or Kayo Kelly is allowed to have any 
supper, but that’s no loss to me, because eating is the 
last thing I’m thinking of. At seven o’clock we are in 
the dressing room at the club-house and “Sidney” 
Jepps, the dinge rubber, and Nate is getting me ready 
for the—eh—ring. I nearly said gallows! The noise 
of the mob outside in the arena comes in to me like the 
boom of the ocean on the beach at night. The grimy 
dressing-room, lit by a couple of dull yellow wire- 
screened electric lights smells like a hospital ward. 
Arnica and aromatic spirits of ammonia, I recognize, 
but they’s another smell I don’t. It’s like ether. “ ‘At’s 
collodion,” says Nate, when I ask him. “Stops 
bleedin’!” I didn’t ask him no more questions after 
that. Stops bleeding —woof! 

After I’ve stripped and got into white trunks and 
ring shoes, Nate wraps a roll of soft bandages around 
each of my hands. That’s to protect the knuckles and 
give me more of a grip when I’m punching. All the 
time, him and Kayo keeps up a running fire of kidding 



96 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


and funny stories, but I can see they’re just trying to 
keep up my spirits, because when Nate laughs, only 
his lips is care free, the rest of his face is set! And 
every other word from Kayo Kelly is, “How d’ye feel 
now?” till Nate shuts him up. I can feel that in spite of 
their joshing, Nate and Kayo and even “Shiney” Jepps, 
who’s kneading my stomach and the back of my neck, 
is darn serious. You can bet I know that when I walk 
out there in the ring before that howling mob I ain’t 
going to get no gym workout, I’m going to be in a 
FIGHT! 

Now from all this, maybe you think I’m a trifle 
yellow and that I was scared stiff. Well, I wasn’t 
scared. If I was faint-hearted, I’d never of took up 
box fighting to begin with. But you want to remember 
that all this grim preparation was brand-new to me 
and where I’d been boxing with Kayo Kelly and my 
own handlers before a couple hundred people at the 
most and nearly all of which knew me, I was now 
going out in a strange town before eight or nine 
thousand hard-boiled fight fans, which never heard of 
me before in their lives. When I start down the close- 
packed aisle to the ring with Nate and my seconds, I 
want to tell you I was a bundle of hair-trigger nerves 
and if somebody had of blowed a auto horn behind 
me I’d of jumped right clear through the roof! 

I hear every word about me on that trip down the 
aisle, the longest trip I ever took in my life. “Who’s 
’at guy?” “He looks pale!” “Not so good—this 
‘Red’ Johns is a terrible gorilla, he’ll murder ’at kid!” 
All that and more, stinging me like red-hot needles. 


“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 


97 , 

Climbing through the ropes, I stumbled and lost my 
balance and the customers howls. “Fall through ’em, 
kid, you’ll git knocked through ’em in a minute!” and 
—some other stuff, which I bet none of them babies 
would of dared said to my face if they was alone. The 
glaring lights over the ring, after the gloomy dressing 
room, blinds me, and it’s a couple of minutes before I 
can see where I’m at. Tobacco smoke is drifting over 
the ropes till breathing is quite the feat. Nate guides 
me over to the rosin box and I rub my shoes in it, so’s 
I won’t slip in ducking a punch or trying to land one. 
The next stop is in “Red” Johns’s corner, where he’s 
already awaiting, covered with a dirty red bathrobe 
and surrounded by his handlers. He never even looked 
up when Nate bends over to examine his bandages 
and holds my hands up so’s his seconds can see mine. 
But I looked at “Red” Johns with great interest! I 
see a carrot-headed, bull-necked assassin, with hair 
on his chest so thick I thought at first he was wearing 
a red sweater. His nose is almost flat on his face. A 
tough-looking baby if they ever was one, I’ll tell the 
cross-eyed world! 

I’m just back in my corner, staring out at a crowd 
which would make it look like they was only two guys 
at the Battle of the Marne, when Nate pulls my mouth 
open and shoves in a rubber teeth protector. 

“Don’t swalley ’at!” he grunts, beginning to lace on 
my gloves. “Now remember, this chump’s a sucker 
for a straight left. Don’t go rushin’ out there to trade 
swings with him, or he’ll flatten you! Jab his head off 
with ’at left first, then cross your right. You lead 


98 FIGHTING BLOOD 

with your right to this guy and he’ll goal you sure!” 

The gong rings a half dozen times and the crowd 
quiets down. People is still coming in. Some is carry¬ 
ing on conversations with their backs to the ring. What 
do they care about the prelims! The announcer raises 
his hand. 

“Over here, ‘Red’ Johns of Brooklyn. In the other 
corner, ‘Six-Second Smith, eh—” he grins, “—the 
Drew City Cave man! One hundred and forty-five 
pounders. Six rounds!” 

The mob has begun on me before I’m halfways to 
the middle of the ring for the referee’s instructions. 
“Where d’ye get that ‘Six-Second’ stuff?” “He means 
he’ll last six seconds!” By this time I’m so up in the 
air I don’t know if I’m in Brooklyn or Brazil! “Red” 
Johns leers at me. I’m trembling and tingling all over 
and I can’t stop it and that makes me crazy mad at 
myself. This “Red” Johns looks like he feels the only 
way he can lose is for me to pull a gun from my shoe 
and shoot him. He’s been through this a hundred 
times—this is my first. Somebody’s yelling: “Hey, 
Gale! Hey, Gale!” I peer through the smoky haze 
over the ropes and I see Spence Brock, jumping up 
and waving a pennant. In the box with him is Rags 
Dempster and some of the other boys from the prep 
school. 

I’m goofy, no fooling, but I manage to wave back 
my glove. I don’t know what it’s all about—I’m in a 
trance. Rags curls his lip and whispers to the fellow 
next to him and then they both laugh. I go up in the 
air a couple of thousand feet more. “Knocked cold 



“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 


99 


in my first fight before Rags Dempster!” begins run¬ 
ning through my crazy mind. I can picture him telling 
Judy how it happened. I don’t hear half what the 
referee’s saying, but he winds up with: “Fight hard, 
hit clean, and break when I tell yuh!” A hoarse 
whisper hits my ear: “I’ll spill you in a minute, you 
big hick.” . . . That’s Mr. “Red” Johns, and while 
he’s saying that he’s shaking my glove with his, very 
politely. You should of saw his face—like a tiger’s! 
Well, this about ruins me. I go back to my comer and 
Nate whips off my bathrobe, then slips down under 
the ropes, leaving me all alone under them terrible 
lights—all alone except for the hard-faced referee 
leaning against the ropes, and “Red” Johns with his 
back to me across the ring. “Red” Johns has got hold 
of the top rope with his gloves and he’s bending up 
and down, limbering his leg muscles. I just stand 
there facing the mob and I see nothing but a howling 
jumble of blurred, cold sneering faces. Nate shoves 
his head up under the lower rope: 

“Remember, make him come to you—don’t go after 
him. And what ever you do, don’t lead with ’at right!” 

I hear this “Don’t lead with your right!” over and 
over again, but I’m thinking of what depends on me 
winning my first start, of Judy, of that sneering Rags 
out there, and then, to show you how cuckoo I am, I 
puzzle over what part of a minute is six seconds, that 
being my ring name. 1 houghts is shooting through 
my head like a news-reel movie being run too fast. I 
get on one thought and another one blurs it out. Can 
I last six rounds? Can I keep this scowling, hairy 


IOO 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


cannibal away from me that long? Then I think this 
—why try to keep him away at all? Why not rush 
right in and- 

The bell clanged out and I jumped a foot! The 
mob’s yelling its head off again. I shot out of my 
corner like a bullet from a rifle and now my mind’s 
clear of all but one idea and that’s to knock “Red” 
Johns cold and do it swift! All the careful instruc¬ 
tions which Nate hammered into me for three weary, 
heart-breaking months of training is gone and for¬ 
gotten. He might as well of told me nothing . I forget 
that Nate says leading with my right leaves me open 
to a fatal counter. My first—and last—punch in that 
fight was a right hook to the jaw. It socked against 
Red Johns’s quickly upraised glove. It drove that glove 
back against his chin with a loud “Zop!” and Red 
Johns crashed to the canvas. I put so much stuff on 
that wallop that the force of my own swing carried 
me half ways across the ring and I had to jump to 
miss stepping on Red Johns’s body. 

The crowd’s standing up on the chairs, screeching 
like cats and dogs and I hear the whistles and horns 
the gang from Drew City brung with ’em. The referee 
shoves me against the ropes and begins counting. At 
“eight,” *Red Johns kind of quivered, rolled over on 
his stomach, then stretched out flat. The referee grabs 
my wrist and holds my arm up to the crowd. 

I have trained three months for a fight which lasted 
just sixteen seconds. 

I was reaching down to help Red Johns’s handlers 
carry him to his corner, when Nate jumps through the 



“SIX-SECOND SMITH” 


IOI 


ropes and grabbed me away. Nate is terrible excited. 
He don’t know what he’s doing. He throws his arms 
around me and kissed me; can you beat that ? 

“Sweet Mamma, what a socker you turned out to 
be!” Nate bellers. “You’re the bee’s knees, for a 
fact! But you do what I tell you hereafter, get me? 
You lead with your right to anybody again and I’ll 
crown you with a bucket!” 

He throws me bathrobe around me and we walk over 
to Red Johns’s corner. Red’s come to, but they still 
got ammonia under his nose. He just found out he 
was stopped with a punch and he’s crying like a baby. 
I go to shake hands with him and he pushes my glove 
away. 

I got plenty applause leaving the ring, but I just 
remember that now. Right then, I’m still hypnotized, 
I can’t believe I’m awake! I phoned Judy from the 
box office of the fight club. I just says: “Well, I won!” 
and hung up—I squared myself with her later. I tell 
you I’m still goofy and—terrible sleepy! I didn’t 
even wait to see how Knockout Kelly made out with 
Jackie Frayne. I went right to the hotel where I was 
to stay overnight with Nate and Kayo and went to 
bed, clothes and all. 

The next morning I bought a copy of every New 
York paper printed and took ’em up to my room in the 
hotel. I figure they’ll be full of how I win my first 
battle. Well, on the sporting pages they’s about a 
column on the Kayo Kelly-Jackie Frayne muss. It 
seems they fought a tame ten-round draw. Down at 
the bottom, it says this: 


102 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


“Six-Second Smith, a newcomer around these parts, 
stopped Red Johns with a punch in the opening frame 
of the first preliminary. They are welterweights. Red 
waited too long!” 

One of the biggest events of my life is just a laugh 
to the Big Town sport writers! But I can still see 
Red Johns hitting that mat. He kind of bounced a 
little, then settled down flat on his back, and under 
them terrible lights his face is like wet chalk. I sit 
there on my bed and wonder how long it’ll be before 
I’ll be laying flat on by back under the lights, with my 
face looking like wet chalk? 


ROUND FOUR 


TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 

Maybe you think a fellow which will go to work 
and pay twenty-five bucks for a box of writing paper 
for himself is cuckoo, and maybe he is. But, honest, I 
wish you could of curled a eye over this stationery. It 
was the eel’s ankle, no fooling! Take this paper itself 
—lobster red—and across the top in purple letters 
which you could press down with your fingers it said 
this: 


SIX-SECOND SMITH, nee GALE GALEN 
Leading Contender for World’s Middleweight Title 


THE IDOL OF PROMOTERS AND FIGHT FANS 


Why? 

He’s always in shape. 

He fights clean. 

He hits hard and often. 

He’s always trying. 

He doesn’t want all the money. 
He will box any boy at 158 lbs. 


A Few Victims 

Red Johns, K. O. 1 Rd. 

Fred Nixon, K. O. 1 Rd. 
Young Fisher, Won 3 Rds. 
Kid George, K. O. 1 Rd. 
Shifty McTague, Won 1 Rd. 
Battling Lee, K. O. 8 Rds. 


His Manager, Nate Shapiro. 

His Motto: “Dieu et Mon Droit!” 


Drew City, N. J., , 19 . 


Besides this, in the upper right-hand corner there 
was a picture of me in my evening clothes—ring togs 

103 


104 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


—and if that ain’t a nifty letter head, then Dempsey’s a 
traffic cop! I thought that letter head all out myself 
and Nate said it was the greatest business getter he 
ever seen since he’d been handling box fighters and 
that’s been since a right hook was a punch. Why, 
Nate never sent out a letter to a fight club on this paper 
that it didn’t pull some kind of a answer, even if the 
matchmaker only wished to know where could he get 
the music for it. 

What I particularly idolized about this letter head 
was my motto, “DIEU ET MON DROIT!” That 
means “God and my Right!” and it was the slogan of 
a two-handed fighter named Richard I, which besides 
having that last name with only one letter in it, once 
held down the exacting job of King of England. 
Well, I never was King of England, but still and all 
I decided that “Dieu et mon droit!” would make a 
swell battle cry for me and a wonderful motto to live 
up to. Mrs. Willcox had taught me a lot about the Bible 
and I said my prayers every night and went to church 
with her and Judy every Sunday and I ain’t ashamed 
to admit it neither. So that’s why I was strong for the 
first part of that motto. As for the last part, . . 
and my Right!”, well, that was made to order for me. 
I don’t know how much of a socker Richard I was with 
his right, but I know that my right made me a world’s 
champion and you can’t laugh that off! 

Well, after winning my first fight with a punch I 
stopped six other good boys in from one to eight 
rounds each and I was no more ashamed of that record 
than Napoleon was of his business. But I’m still de- 


TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 105 


termined that the minute I get the price of a education 
the prize ring’s loss will be the world’s gain! I had 
nothing against box fighting; as far as that part of it 
goes, I got quite the kick out of it. But how many 
scrappers is making a living at their trade at forty, 
for the example. How many which is out of the game 
is living on Well Fixed Avenue? 

While you’re puzzling over that brain teaser, I’ll 
get back to Judy, and who wouldn’t? Judy was now 
my chief second in this finish fight I begin with Bat¬ 
tling Ignorance, and during her vacation that summer 
from Drew City Prep, she taught me this and that. 
We had reading and writing, arithmetic and spelling, 
history and geography, grammer and hot chocolate 
when school’s over. Ain’t we got fun! If I had 
learned what is the difference between a verb and a 
pronoun as fast as I learned to fall into love with 
this sweet little eye-widener, why, I could of went 
up to Yale and made a monkey out of the entire 
college! 

Well, after four fights as a welterweight, me and 
Nate makes the sad discovery that I can’t make the 
poundage in that division no more because I’m grow¬ 
ing like a baby elephant. The best I can get down to 
at that time is 158 ringside and it takes a two days’ 
drying out to do that. So I was then a full-fledged 
middleweight, not that this entitled me to carry a 
sword and rate a salute or anything like that. My four 
scuffles as a welter nets me around five hundred bucks 
after Nate takes out his half and I square for the jack 
he advanced me to live on before I have my first fight. 


io6 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


In them four battles I am trading wallops less than a 
half hour altogether—the first one only goes sixteen 
seconds—and my gross receipts is just $1,200. 
When Nate picks me from behind Ajariah Stubbs’s 
soda fountain, I have to work twelve hours a day for 
two years to click off twelve hundred smackers! 
Honest, I felt like the laborer which win fifty dollars 
the first time he ever bet on a horse race in his life 
and says in astonishment: “How long has this been 
going on?” 

One of the first things I done when the money be¬ 
gin to roll in like this was to get myself two swell suits 
of clothes, a complete and classy outfit of gents fur¬ 
nishings and a hundred-buck diamond ring. The rest 
opens a savings account and I put on no more dog 
from then until I had a real bankroll. But this first 
plunge I simply had to take and that’s a fact. All my 
life I had wanted to have two suits of clothes—one 
for every day and one for when I’m stepping out. 
Then that diamond—it was a pip, too—well, that was 
simply another case of must have! It gives a fellow 
a air of—eh—but you get me, don’t you? 

On my nineteenth birthday Nate signs me up with 
a sapolio called Shifty McTague for my first start as 
a middleweight. Ten rounds at Irontown, Pa., for a 
guarantee of $600 if I stay the limit. If on the 
contrary, I get paid at the rate of $50 a round, and no 
tips. McTague, a big favorite in Irontown, is to get 
a thousand bucks fiat even should I smack him for a 
mock turtle, which I don’t mind telling you is what I 
intended to do, no matter what his own plans is for re- 


TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 107 


maining erect. This bout was tfie main event of a card 
put on for the hired help by the heavy bosses of the 
Irontown Locomotive Works, to celebrate the fiftieth 
birthday of the choo-choo factory. The merry iron¬ 
workers had a two-day holiday of track and field 
sports, winding up with the boxing show, while the 
bosses done their setting-up exercises at a banquet 
table. 

We signed the articles in Lefty Mullen’s gym in 
New York. Both me and Shifty McTague agree to 
make 158 at two o’clock the day of the quarrel. 

“I don’t seem to of heard much about this boy of 
yours,” says the matchmaker to Nate, looking at me 
kind of suspicious. “Is he tough?” 

“Is he tough?” grunts Nate. “This McTague 
boloney will think he’s tough when ’at bell rings, 
don’t think he won’t. Why, this kid had on a pair of 
boxin’ gloves the first day he’s alive!” 

“I hope he’s tough,” says the matchmaker gloomily. 
“Because should he not be tough, he’ll have on a pair 
of boxin’ gloves the last day he’s alive too!” 

“Blah!” sneers Nate. “Be yourself! Who did this 
McTague ever kill?” 

“I ain’t talkin’ about McTague” says the match¬ 
maker. “I’m busy thinkin’ about them ironworkers, 
which will expect the Battle of Gettysburg once them 
two boys come out of their corners. If your battler 
can’t take it, they’ll cook him sure. That goes for 
McTague too. I don’t care how tough your boy thinks 
he is, them ironworkers is Tough itself! If I was the 
two kids which is goin’ up there to do their stuff, I’d 


io8 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


rather git my nose broke by a boxin’ glove than git 
my skull broke by a crowbar. Yes, sir, them kids bet¬ 
ter be a couple of two-fisted maniacs, that’s all / got 
to say!” 

He said too much as it was, hey? 

On the way back home I can’t think of nothing at 
all but them ironworkers, and I must say that the ‘idea 
of battling a locomotive works single-handed don’t 
appeal to me at all. I had already fought before the 
kind of sportsmen which thinks every fight where both 
boys ain’t cut and slashed to ribbons is a frame-up 
between a couple of room mates and I know what me 
and this Shifty McTague will be up against, if we 
don’t half kill each other. Nate says the matchmaker 
was just trying to give me a pushing around, and to 
forget all about it, because this scrap will be the same 
as any other. 

But it wasn’t! 

When we get back to Drew City I go right up to my 
room. That’s something I wish you could of saw, 
no fooling! I had it fixed up swell, and, as Nate said, 
there was about everything in it but a race track and a 
swimming pool. On the floor was one of the rugs 
they turn out in Drew City, N. J., and ship to the 
Indians to sell out West, and I had so many pictures 
on the walls you couldn’t see the paper. Besides fight¬ 
ing photos of me in a dozen different menacing poses, 
there was pictures of Dempsey, Leonard, Lynch, Car- 
pentier, the gentleman socker, and nearly all the other 
champs and near champs. I cut them all out of The 
Police Gazette and they’s only one other place I rather 


TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 109 

of had my own picture than in The Police Gazette and 
that’s in Judy’s locket! 

Mrs. Willcox hollered about my art gallery at first 
on the account she says pinning them pictures on the 
wall spoils the paper. So then I take out the pins and 
went to work and paste all the pictures on the wall. 
Well, the dear old lady just throws up her hands, but 
says nothing, because I was the star boarder and star 
boarders has got to be gave certain liberties. 

Well, although this was my nineteenth birthday, I 
don’t feel so good, for a fact. In the first place, there’s 
them ironworkers which expects a race riot when me 
and Shifty McTague mingles; in the second place, it’s 
one of them dark, foggy, rainy days which would give 
Mr. Happy himself the blues; and, in the third place, 
nobody ain’t even wished me a merry birthday—not 
so much as a post card have I got so far! 

For the want of something to do I get out a pile of 
my pictures and a pen and ink and commence writing 
“Yours Truly, Six-Second Smith” on ’em, so’s I’ll 
have a lot ready when I’m champion and the public 
commences to clamor for my autograph photo. But 
my mind ain’t on the thing and after a while I give 
it up. The steady rattle of rain on the windows and 
the steady rattle of thoughts on my brain gets me 
plenty nervous, so I begin shadow boxing, slamming 
my right over on the air and making out I’m clout¬ 
ing this Shifty McTague. Every now and then I stop 
in front of the mirror and fall into my famous fighting 
crouch which I copied from Dempsey. I look at his 
face in the picture on the wall and I notice he’s got a 


no 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


fierce scowl on him, so I scowl too. Standing there 
with my head lowered, my left hand out, my noted 
right pulled back for the sleep producer and a horrible 
frown on my face, I get kind of fascinated by what a 
ringer I am for Dempsey right then! 

Then I hear a giggle. 

I had left the door open for Nate, but Nate ain’t no 
giggler. Dropping my hands, I swing around like a 
flash and—there’s Judy, looking at me and laughing 
her head off. She’s just come in from the storm and 
her raincoat is dripping water, which even glistens on 
her breath-taking face. The room is dark and gloomy 
but Judy standing there in the doorway lights it up 
like a cathedral. 

Every time I look at this girl a epidemic of wishing 
hit me which would made it look like Aladdin’s re¬ 
quests was modest! Well, when I realize that Judy’s 
been standing there for some time and has seen me 
posing in front of the mirror and taking wallops at the 
air, why, I feel like a sap. I can tell my face is getting 
so red it must of looked like somebody hit me with a 
throwing tomato. 

“Many happy returns of the day!” smiles Judy and 
whisks a bundle from behind her back. Without an¬ 
other word she hands it to me and blows. 

I tear the paper off this bundle and my fingers seems 
to be nothing but thumbs. The idea that Judy has 
thought of me at all on my birthday has got me so 
excited that if they’s nothing in this package but a 
cast-iron hair brush I’ll be highly satisfied. But it’s 
something all soft and padded and silk, till at first I 


TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD hi 


think she has made a mistake and I’m in the ladies’ 
wear department. Then I stand up and shake it out 
and the next minute I let forth a whinney of joy. It’s 
a bathrobe for me to wear into the ring, and Judy 
couldn’t of got me nothing better if she had sit up all 
night to dope it out! 

And, oh, what a knockout this bathrobe was! On 
the breast pocket 'she has went to work and sewed 
“G. G.” in red silk. The bathrobe itself is blue, and 
then I remember only the other day Judy asks me 
what’s my favorite color, and I look at her and she’s 
dressed in blue from head to foot, so you know what 
color I says is my pet. Well, first I close the door 
tight and then I take hold of that monogram which 
Judy’s little fingers has sewed on and I kiss it—go 
ahead and laugh your head off, you never seen Judy! 
Then I try it on over my clothes, and if I ain’t the 
turkey’s elbow when I’m inside this bathrobe, then 
they’s only two Frenchmen in Paris the year round! 

I’m just going downstairs to find Judy and ply her 
with thanks, when Knockout Kelly comes into the 
room. I showed him the present I got from Judy. 
He admires it plenty and says if he was me he wouldn’t 
pay no attention to the razzing I’ll get the first time I 
walk down the aisle to the ring in a fight club with a 
baby blue silk bathrobe on. While I’m thinking this one 
over, Kayo tells me to wait a minute and goes to his 
room. Fie comes back with a peach of a white sweater 
and throws it on my bed. “There’s one more birthday 
present, kid,” he grins. “Of course, alongside of that 
—eh—kimono Miss Willcox give you, why my present 


112 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


don’t mean nothin’. But maybe tomorrow I’ll give 
you somethin’ else.” 

He did that thing. The very next morning when me 
and Kayo is sparring, he give me a split lip. 

Well, I find Judy in the parlor wielding a cruel 
knitting needle, and I go over and sit down beside her. 
“Judy,” I says, “that bathrobe is immense and I don’t 
know how to thank you!” 

“Don’t try,” smiles Judy. “Does it fit you?” 

“Like the skin on a grape!” I says. “What would 
you like for Christmas?” 

Judy laughs and drops the knitting; which tickles 
me, as watching them flying needles gets me nervous 
as a cat. “What would I like for Christmas?” she 
says. “Why, this is July!” 

“Well, what’s the nearest holiday, then?” I says. 

Judy picks up this knitting again, passing up my 
inquiry of even date. “How are you coming along 
with your reading, Gale?” she asks. 

“Great!” I says. “I sit up all hours last night read¬ 
ing the most thrilling book ever wrote. All about 
Indians, Cannibals, sharks, Bowie knives, beheadings, 
gem cutting-” 

“Gale!” Judy interrupts, the bit reproachful. 
“That sort of thing isn’t going to help you. You’ve 
been reading a dime novel!” 

“Well,” I says, “you recommended it to me your¬ 
self.” 

“I recommended nothing like that ? What’s the name 
of that book?” 

“Encyclopedia,” I says. “What are you laughing 



TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 113 


at ? I know you think that name is phoney, and I made 
it up myself, but that’s where you’re wrong, Judy. 
I’ll go right upstairs and get that book now and-” 

“Oh, I believe you,” says Judy. “But I just put an 
encyclopedia on your list for a reference book. What 
did you look up in it?” 

“I looked up everything,” I says. “Believe me, 
Judy, I didn’t skip nothing! I started at the A’s and I 
wind up at the Z’s and now I’m on my second journey 
around the circuit and enjoying every inch of the trip.” 

“You funny boy!” says Judy, trying out another 
giggle. 

“Much obliged!” I says, slightly steamed. “Judy, 
I know you think I’m cuckoo to sit up half the night 
reading a encyclopedia. I suppose to most people the 
average encyclopedia is about as exciting as a rainy 
Sunday night down on the farm. Well, it’s different 
here. Why, Judy, a fellow like me which is just dying 
to know what it’s all about, can have the time of his 
life with a good thick encyclopedia. This here ain’t 
just a book to me, it’s a pal, what I mean! It’s wised 
me up to things which I never heard tell of before, 
or if I did, hear of ’em, they didn’t mean nothing. 
It’s-” 

“I hope you’ll remember what you’re reading, Gale,” 
butts in Judy. “And store all that away in your mind 
to be called forth when needed. Don’t skip what you 
don’t understand—just mark those places and I’ll go 
over them with you later. That, you know,” she 
adds with a smile which goals me as usual —“that is 
what you’re paying me for.” 


8 




FIGHTING BLOOD 


1 14 

Well, here and there they may be some professors 
which knows more than Judy, but I'll tell the slant¬ 
eyed world I had the best-looking teacher in captivity, 
and that’s a fact! 

“I notice you don’t go to the movies with Mr. 
Knockout Kelly and Mr. Shapiro any more at night,” 
remarks Judy, after a minute. 

“Judy,” I says, “them babies don’t want to get no- 
wheres—I do! Let them play the movies, I’ll stay 
home with my encyclopedia. Think of being able to 
get the low-down on stuff like Feudalism, The Spanish 
Inquisitives, Anaesthasia, Capital Punishment and 
Sponge Fishing, all in the same night! Can the movies 
tie that?” 

But Judy’s laughing again and that gets my animal. 

“Listen,” I says. “Maybe you think a leather pusher 
which spends his nights off studying this kind of stuff 
is a sap, because they will hardly ever be a time in the 
middle of a fight when the other scrapper will stop 
socking to ask: “What does feudalism mean, kid?” 
or anything like that. Well, / don’t think I’m no sap 
for trying to make something out of myself, Judy. If 
I can’t go to no university, I can at least get a home¬ 
made education and I can pick up a couple of pennants 
and a college yell anywheres!” 

With that I get up and start out of the room, but 
Judy jumps up too, dropping the knitting on the floor 
and laying her hand on my arm. 

“Indeed, I’m not laughing at your studying, Gale,” 
she says seriously, making me turn around so’s I’m 
facing her. “I—you have such a—a—funny way of 


TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 115 


putting things, I can’t help laughing at some of the 
things you say. I—you are so different from any of 
the boys that—well, I’m not sure that isn’t one of the 
reasons I like you. I have a deep and sincere admira¬ 
tion for your determination to make something out of 
yourself, as you put it, and I know, I’m positive you 
will! You won’t be able to help yourself, Gale, you’re 
fated to succeed—I—just feel it. Why, look what 
you’ve accomplished since you first came to Drew City. 
You won’t be a prize fighter long, and then-” 

“Listen, Judy,” I butt in—I got a one-track mind. 
“Just now when you started to talk you said you liked 
me. Does that go?” 

Her face gets a deep scarlet, and, gee, but it’s be¬ 
coming! Now it’s her turn to look the other way and 
I’m just slowly turning her around and who knows 
what might of happened, when Nate pushes aside the 
portieres and walks into the room. Nate’s own 
mother don’t like him no more than I do, but right 
then I could of smacked him for a Russian picalilli 
plate and had a clear conscience! Judy, of course, 
ducked immediately. 

“Did I bust up anything?” grins Nate. 

“Why don’t you blow your horn?” I growls. “No, 
you didn’t bust up nothing, because there’s nothing to 
bust up, but if-” 

“But if I had put off coming in here till tomorrow 
I wouldn’t of got nobody sore!” Nate cuts me off, 
still grinning. He takes a little box out of his pocket 
and hands it to me. “Merry Birthday!” he says, slap¬ 
ping me on the back. “ ’At’s the best I could get you. 




n6 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


They’s twenty-seven jewels in ’at watch and no two 
alike. It set me back seventy iron men. You lose it or 
bust it and I’ll make you hard to catch! I made it the 
point not to get your initials put on it, because you 
may git up against it some day and want to hock it 
and you can git more sugar on it if it ain’t initialed.” 

“You think of everything, don’t you?” I says. 

But I only get sarcastic because I don’t want Nate 
to see my real feelings. Imagine this ten-minute egg 
giving me a present! And this watch Nate give me is 
plenty timepiece, too, don’t think it wasn’t. All it 
needed was Judy’s picture in the back of the case and 
I get that the same night. While I’m thanking Nate 
over and over again, he pulls The Police Gazette out of 
his pocket, and, folding back a page, hands it to me. 

“Here’s a laugh!” he says, “Lamp this bozo—it says 
he’ll be the next middleweight champ!” 

Well, I look at the page Nate points to and—say, 
I feel almost like I felt the first time I ever knocked 
anybody cold. There’s a picture of me in ring togs 
in The Police Gazette, where Dempsey and Leonard 
and all them guys gets their pictures printed! 

But that ain’t all. Spence Brock gives me a scarf 
pin, Shiney Jepp, the dinge rubber, hands me a new 
pair of purple silk trunks with a red monogram, and to 
top off the day, Mrs. Willcox puts on a big birthday 
dinner with chicken, lobster salad, mince pie, etc., and 
she bakes a cake for me with nineteen candles on it. 
Some birthday! 

The next day is Sunday and Nate lets me off from 
the grind at our camp because, for one thing, my spar- 


TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 117 


ring partners needs the rest, and for another thing, 
Nate don’t want me trained too fine for this Shifty 
McTague. Kayo Kelly, getting romantic, hires a car 
and takes Mary Ballinger, the stenog at the Commer¬ 
cial House, for a trip to the Trenton Fair. Spence 
Brock calls around for me in his racer and me and him 
takes a long ride in the country. When Spence got 
through Drew City Prep that year, why he went to 
Princeton to get colleged and when he come out it 
didn’t make no difference if all he learned was to yell, 
because his old man has $4.75 for every Spaniard in 
Madrid, fPretty soft, hey? Well, I didn’t envy Spence 
and you can believe that or not, just as you like. I 
don’t know as I’d wanted to of been born rich, because 
then I’d have nothing to shoot at, what I mean. Being 
born poor, I’ve had to hustle all my life and that’s 
kind of give me the hustling habit. Anyway, me and 
Spence went everywheres together except places where 
grammer, family, and bank roll is all you got to have, 
but you must have that! 

Well, this day we’re clicking off the miles on the 
state road with me driving, because I sure liked to 
operate this speed demon of Spence’s and the talk 
swings around to “Rags” Dempster. But to show you 
what a cheap squawker this Rags is, Spence tells me 
he has just welshed on a bet with him. It seems that 
Spence, which thinks I can take Dempsey, bet Rags 
two hundred and fifty bucks I would win my last scrap 
by a knockout. Well, that melee was with Kid George 
at Philly, and after I knock the Kid down four times 
in the first round, why, the referee stops the fight to 


118 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


save Kid George from further punishment. Person¬ 
ally, I’m glad he does stop it, as I don't want to hit 
this game boy no more, but Rags won't pay Spence off 
because he claims it wasn't a clean knockout. Can you 
imagine a cheater like that? Everybody in the world 
knows that a fight stopped that way counts the same as 
a knockout, but this Rags insists that the bet go over 
to my next fight, which is the one with Shifty Mc- 
Tague, thereby giving himself two chances to win the 
bet. 

Well, when I see how Rags is trying to gyp Spence 
out of his two hundred and a half I get red-headed and 
I tell Spence I will flatten Shifty McTague if I have 
to hit him with the bucket! 

“Don’t worry, Gale,” laughs Spence, “you won't 
have to do that, you hit too hard with your hands! I’ll 
bet a year or so from now I’ll be going around saying: 
‘Six-Second Smith, the world’s champion middle¬ 
weight? Oh, yes, I know him well. We used to be 
chums in-’ ” 

“Do you think you’ll be saying we used to be chums, 
Spence?” I cut in, “I mean, is the fact that I’m a prize 
fighter going to wind you and me up?” 

Spence is half turned away and beginning to laugh, 
but he breaks off and swings around to me in a flash. 

“Is that the way I strike you, Gale?” he asks quietly. 

Well, after a look into his fine brown eyes I’m 
ashamed of myself, no fooling! 

“No, Spence,” I says, “That ain't the way you strike 
me—and I’m sorry I made that crack!” 

Spence shows me all his nice white teeth again. 



TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 119 


“Gale,” he goes on, kind of impulsive, “I wish you’d 
let me bring you up to the house some time to meet 
dad. Now, wait—you’d like him and he’d like you! 
He’s a regular fellow, is dad, and he’d be pleased that 
we’re friends. With one or two exceptions, he loathes 
the rest of the fellows in our crowd, says they’re a lot 
of spineless young jellyfish—that’s the mildest term he 
uses for them! He’s a boxing enthusiast, too—goes 
to all the championship fights, to mother’s supreme dis¬ 
gust. He’s tried to sneak me along with him a couple 
of times, but mother’s put her foot down and that—er 
—ends it. There was a young riot over me going to 
see you fight that Red Johns and-” 

“They’d be two young riots if you ever brought me 
up to your house, Spence,” I grins. “ ‘Father, meet my 
friend Six-Second Smith, the prize fighter.’ Woof!” 

Spence laughs, but immediately turns serious again. 
“You’re simply scared because dad has a lot of money,” 
he says. “And I suppose ‘Spencer-Brock’ as a sur¬ 
name sounds terrifying. Well, Gale, as a matter of 
fact, our name is actually just Brock. Spencer is 
mother’s family name, and she and my sisters are re¬ 
sponsible for the hyphenated arrangement. Dad is 
really plain John T. Brock, and he made his money 
originally in—in the manufacturing business. There! 
No ‘born to the purple’ or any of that nonsense about 
that, is there? My mother and sisters would flay me 
alive if they knew I told anyone this, but I want to 
set you right on dad. I’ve told him lots about you, 
Gale, how you’re educating yourself and how you’ve 
struggled for a foothold in life. The way you’ve made 



120 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


your own way since you’ve been a child interests him 
immensely. Those things always do. Dad loves a 
fighter and-” 

“He might love a fighter, Spence,” I butt in. “But 
a prise fighter would be different! Even if he is a 
fight fan, he’s also a rich millionaire and he’d no more 
want me up at his home than he’d want a horse in his 
parlor if he was a nut on racing. No, Spence, I don’t 
want to meet your father yet. Let’s wait till I get out 
of the ring and mean something—wait till you can 
take me up to the house without making any excuses 
for me, get me? If you brought me up there now, the 
chances is your mother and sisters would yell murder 
and forbid you to go with me any more. And don’t 
say nothing to your father about me being a scrapper, 
because the minute he hears that he’ll bust up our 
friendship as sure as they’s a touch of tomato in 
catsup!” 

So we drop that subject, but three weeks later 
Spence’s father himself brings it up with a crash! 

The following day, Rags Dempster shows up at the 
training camp with a bunch of his dumbell friends. If 
I had saw them first they never would of set foot over 
the threshold, but Nate’s got their Jack and they’re 
inside before I know it. The first I’m aware that I’m 
performing for the benefit of my only known enemy 
is when Tommy O’Ryan, a sparring partner, stabs me 
on the nose with a straight left. This starts a slight 
flow of claret—nothing to be alarmed about and all 
in the day’s work at a training camp. So I just wipe 
my nose with my glove and continue on, not even floor- 



TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 121 


ing Tommy for the benefit of the audience, as some 
guys would of did then and there. I never did believe 
in beating up a sparring partner which is merely doing 
what you hire him for when he clouts you. But Rags 
sees this blood on my face and he howls with joy. So 
does his friends. The mere sound of Rags Dempster’s 
voice throws me off balance, and Mr. Thomas O’Ryan, 
a mean hitter, socks me on the sore beak again, this 
time to my great annoyance, I must say. The red ink 
starts afresh and so does Rags. He hollers to Tommy 
to flatten me and he’ll give him a hundred bucks, 
pulling out a bill and waving it around. 

Tommy grins, knowing I’m pulling my own 
punches, and, not even getting action for his money, 
Rags begins making cracks about me which would 
make my father turn over in his grave if he thought I 
was taking ’em. Stepping away from Tommy, I make 
one lunge at Rags, missing him by a bare inch 
through being over anxious and excited. The way his 
friends go through that door would of made me laugh 
if I hadn’t been so crazy mad. Rags’s face is the color 
of cream as he starts on the lam for the great outdoors 
with me after him, all business. Two-Punch Jackson 
runs over and grabs Rags just as he’s going through 
the exit, when Nate comes to life. He bawls Jack- 
son to let Rags go and then he swings around on me. 

“Where d’ye get ’at stuff?” he bellers. “You got 
light bandages on—suppose you sock ’at jobbie on the 
head and break a bone in your hand? ’At would lay 
you up for a couple of months, wouldn’t it? You do 
your battlin’ in the ring, where you git paid for your 


122 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


trouble! This fightin’ for nothing is out, git me? 
Let the stevedores do ’at stuff. Next time somebody 
calls you names, make out you don’t know ’em!” 

Well, as the time for this scuffle with Shifty Mc- 
Tague draws near, Nate cuts my workouts down to a 
few rounds light sparring and a two-mile run with a 
rubdown every day. This gives me quite a little time 
to myself, and I use it in trying to get a line on what 
I’m good at, if anything, apart from box fighting. I’m 
still cuckoo over this encyclopedia and I pester Nate 
and Kayo Kelly to read it till they’re fit to be tied! 
Nate says he’ll start in on the encyclopedia the minute 
he gets through reading the telephone book. He can’t 
stop now, he says, because he’s right in the middle of 
a chapter called “Pay Stations,” and it’s as exciting 
as being chased by a grizzly. Kayo says any doctor 
will tell you that reading is bad for the eyes, add¬ 
ing that he bets I’m selling encyclopedias as a side 
line. 

That crack of Kayo’s gives me a large idea. Why 
not sell encyclopedias as a side line? I got to try my 
luck at something, unless I want to wind up as a pork- 
and-bean pug, which I didn’t, by no means! The more 
I think about it, the more I get hopped up on the idea. 
I figure that once the people of Drew City finds out 
what a swell novel a encyclopedia is, why, they’ll sell 
like ice water would sell on the Sara Desert. Judy 
gets all excited too when I put the matter up to her, and 
Spence slaps me on the back and says he’ll take at 
least one set without looking! 

That decides me. I get a set of encyclopedias for 


TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 123 

samples from New York, and, woof—I’m a book 
agent! 

I only wish I could say that from that time on I 
simply rolled in wealth and I could say it for that 
matter, but I might as well tell the truth. It 
seems Drew City was not quite ripe for a encyclo¬ 
pedia shower and I am too late by quite a few 
years in discovering what a gold mine of knowledge 
one of them books is. I might as well of been 
selling noses—nearly everybody had one! The few 
which didn’t, think the bargain price of ninety- 
eight bucks is the same kind of a bargain that paying 
a thousand dollars for a cruller would be and they 
shooed me away. Even my warmest admirer, viz., 
myself, had to admit that as a book agent I’m a fairly 
good box fighter. However, this flop don’t discourage 
me from the art of salesmanship by no means. I 
simply picked the wrong article for my talents, that’s 
all. It wasn’t long before I took a flyer at this game 
again, but with something else for sale and under 
different conditions. I’m what you call a trying fool! 

The night before I left for Irontown to fight Shifty 
McTague, me and Judy sat out on the back porch and 
talked about this and that. I promise I’ll phone her 
the minute the massacre’s over, like I always did, no 
matter where the bout is held. Mrs. Willcox usually 
waited up to get the returns from me too. While we’re 
sitting there, who comes driving up to the house but 
Rags. As Judy made no attempt to get up and fall 
on his neck or the like with welcome, why, he rings the 
bell, and the next minute Mrs. Willcox lets him in the 


124 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


parlor. She is a dear old lady and treats me like a son, 
but I sure wish she hadn’t let Rags Dempster’s money 
make such a difference in those days. No matter what 
Rags done, Mrs. Willcox didn’t seem able to convict 
him when she remembers that his father owns the big 
carpet factory. However, I had no kick coming then, 
because I’m out there alone on the porch with Judy, 
and at least one of us is enjoying it, when along comes 
Nate. Without no preliminaries he tells me it’s nine 
o’clock and time all good little fighters was in bed, 
especially one which is going to do his stuff the fol¬ 
lowing night. Arguing with Nate comes under the 
head of impossible, so Judy and me adjourns till the 
next meeting. As we’re passing the parlor Rags is 
still in there with Mrs. Willcox and she burns me up 
by calling Judy in. 

I went on up to my room and I get in bed, but I 
can’t get to sleep while Rags is down there talking to 
Judy, even if her mother was among those present. 
In about ten minutes I hear Judy come tripping up the 
stairs. Passing my door, her little feet hesitates and 
she calls softly. “Good night, Gale!” I manage to 
trim: “Good night, you sweet little angel!” down to 
“Good night, Judy!’’ and then she whispers: ‘‘I 
wouldn’t stay downstairs after you came up, Gale. I 
left Rags down there with mother. He’ll make her 
sleepy, and that’s much better for her than veronal!” 

At that I turned over and slept like a log. 

Well, before I get through with life, maybe I’ll have 
a evening more exciting than the time I went up to 
Irontown, Pa., for the praise-worthy purpose of fight- 


TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 125 

ing Mr. Shifty McTague. I say maybe I will—but I 
doubt it. Them man-eating ironworkers which craved 
bloodshed and violence seen enough of both of ’em to 
do ’em till the next draft 1 Likewise, Nate got his mind 
all cleared of a subject which had been bothering him 
for a long time. None of the four boys I stopped in 
my adventures as a welterweight give me much trouble, 
and Nate hankered to know could I fight after being 
knocked a couple of times, pounded to a jelly, and 
with the mob yelling for my execution. All these and 
more questions was answered that evening in dear old 
Irontown. 

It was a night of surprises, so let’s start with the 
first. While my handlers is getting me ready in the 
dressing room, Nate goes out in the arena to examine 
the ring and see what’s doing generally. When he 
comes back he looks thoughtful indeed. He tells me 
that the charming ironworkers is so positive that Shifty 
McTague will slap me for a goal that they’ve made 
Shifty a three to one favorite in the betting. Some of 
’em are laying seven to five I don’t last four rounds. 

“I don’t like the look of things, kid,” says Nate. 
“Most of them engine makers has been hittin’ up the 
hooch, and they’re due to drop a slew of jack when 
you flatten this boloney. They seem to think his name 
is Dempsey instead of McTague and your name is 
Mud instead of Smith! The referee’s O. K.—Jack 
Dougherty, I know him, but them ironworkers is— 
listen, don’t play around with this McTague at all. Go 
out there and take him as quick as possible, and the 
faster we get out of this burg after you bounce him, 


126 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


the more chances we got of livin’ to a ripe old age, get 
me ?” 

Well, that fails to steady my nerves to any great ex¬ 
tent, but I’m outwardly cool when we go down the 
aisle to the ring. The place is packed to the chande¬ 
liers, and, just like Kayo Kelly said, the customers pays 
plenty of loud attention to the blue silk bathrobe Judy 
give me. However, I was getting used to the crowd’s 
more or less good-natured razzing, and while I can’t 
say it done me any good, it didn’t make me want to run 
back and lock myself in the dressing room for a good 
cry either! Shifty McTague is already in the ring, 
and I walk over and politely shake hands with him, 
while Nate looks over his bandages. McTague is one 
of them tall, lanky birds, looking more like a boxer 
than a hitter. He gets a reception from the mob, most 
of which had their dough on him, which would of 
satisfied a actor. I draw a storm of hoots, with a few 
scattered handclaps. To this day I think the hand¬ 
claps was from my seconds, Shiney Jepps and Kayo 
Kelly. 

Around the ring is a circle of boxes, all full of digni¬ 
fied-looking gents in dress suits—officials of the loco¬ 
motive works, Nate finds out. The rest of the mob 
is so excited before the bell that half of ’em can’t even 
sit down. Nate instructs me to go after Shifty Mc- 
Tague’s mid-section exclusively in the first round, as 
Shifty don’t look to him like he could take it. Then— 
the gong! 

I come out and go to touch gloves with Shifty, and 
he sneers at my extended hands, jabbing my head back 




TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 127 

with his left. The ironworkers yells with joy, the 
referee warns Shifty, and, as I clinch with him, I hear 
hisses for him from the ringside boxes. The referee 
breaks us, and Shifty tries to nail me with his right on 
the break-away, but he’s out of luck. I slid away 
from the punch and buried my own right glove to 
the wrist just above the belt. You should of heard 
him grunt! His face shows me he don’t like it, and he 
tried to dive into a clinch, but, having found out all 
I wanted to know about him, I’m anxious to wind 
matters up and get back to Drew City. I pushed him 
off and smashed a left and right to the body. 

The crowd roars as Shifty drops to one knee. He 
takes “nine,” and when he gets up I spill him again 
with a torrid right hook to the heart. The ironworkers 
has all became lunatics, and they are giving Shifty 
enough advice to last him the rest of his life! Shifty 
stumbles to his feet again, barely beating the count, 
and this time he’s through for the evening. I chase 
him all over the ring, but it takes two to make a 
quarrel, and Shifty has become a pacifist of the worst 
kind. The frenzied ironworkers is bitterly imploring 
their boy friend to fight, but nothing stirring! 

A minute before the bell the perspiring referee man¬ 
ages to pry Shifty away from me, and I promptly slam 
him in the wind with my left, sending him back on his 
heels. I tossed a wicked right at the jaw and missed 
by a foot, but, never the less, Shifty dives head first to 
the canvas! His admirers is dumfounded and so am 
I, for that matter. I expected the fight of my life, and 
Shifty McTague turns out to be not only a set-up, but 


128 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


a quitter to boot. No fun in that! The disgusted 
referee bends over Shifty, who’s laying comfortably 
on his back blinking up at the lights. As the referee 
reaches “ten,” Shifty’s seconds swarm into the ring 
yelling “Foul,” but the sneering referee shoves 
’em away and holds up my glove to the petrified 
crowd. 

Then the fun began! 

Them ironworkers has bet nearly every nickel on 
Shifty McTague. For weeks they’d looked forward to 
a battle they’d never forget, and here he goes to work 
and quits in the first round. Half of ’em is full of 
hooch, and, boy, you should of heard ’em! For weeks 
afterward I’d wake up in the middle of the night hear¬ 
ing that crazy mob yelling like wolves. While Nate’s 
wrapping my bathrobe around me and stealing nervous 
glances at the maniacs, I think of that bet Spence made 
with Rags—must be a clean knockout or the bet’s off, 
and I never knocked out Shifty McTague any more 
than I discovered radium. The mob’s booing me to a 
far,e-thee-well, as if it’s my fault Shifty McTague is 
no game-cock! Then the matchmaker climbs into the 
ring—half the attendance is in it already—and shoves 
his way over to us. 

“Do you guys expect to get paid off for this hippo¬ 
drome?” he snarls at Nate. “Why, them babies out 
there will lynch you and your boy in a couple of min¬ 
utes, and then they’ll come back and lynch me for 
makin’ this match! Listen to ’em—look at ’em—try 
to get out of here; ’at’s all!” 

“Ain’t they no coppers in this slab?” asks Nate. 



TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 129 

Him and the matchmaker’s so scared they make me 
laugh, on the level! 

“Listen!” I butt in—and they listen—“I don’t know 
as I blame the crowd. I only boxed two minutes, and 
I ain’t even warmed up. Tell you what I’ll do—I’ll 
step the other nine rounds with any boy of my weight 
you can dig up! Now-” 

But with a yelp of joy the matchmaker is hollering 
for the timekeeper to ring the bell for silence. He gets 
something like quiet, and when the crowd hears the 
announcement they go wild with delight and scurry 
back to their seats. The “Entertainment Committee” 
of the ironworkers’ festival gets busy, and while Nate’s 
still telling me I’m cuckoo and wringing his hands, a 
guy in a bathrobe is boosted into the ring from the 
other side. Sweet Grandpa, he’s a light-heavyweight, 
or else I’m a Spanish mackeral! 

Nate rushes around wildly, waving his arms and 
yelling murder, but the “Entertainment Committee” 
pushes him aside. The referee takes time to bend down 
and whisper in my ear that he’ll stop it if it looks like 
murder, and the ironworkers can cry their eyes out for 
all he cares. The elephant in the other corner is intro¬ 
duced as “Battling Lee of Harrisburg,” and he gets a 
rousing reception. 

Battling Lee refuses to weigh in for Nate, so the 
bout is announced as “catchweights.” I ain’t trying to 
alibi myself. I don’t need no alibi, but Battling Lee’s 
got fifteen pounds on me if he’s got a ounce. He starts 
out to win in a round, and he come near doing it too! 
Having it on me in height, weight, and reach, he gets 



130 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


down to business with the bell. Under Nate’s instruc¬ 
tions to keep moving all the time, so’s this big stiff 
can’t set for a punch, I step around him, using a left 
jab which he avoids with ease, his long reach helping 
him to beat me to the punch every time. 

In half a minute my nose and lips is bleeding, which 
brings three thousand cheers from the mob, and then, 
obeying Nate’s frantic howls, I drop long-range tactics 
and get in close. I know my only chance is to keep 
boring in and wear him down, he’s far too big for me 
to goal with one punch. Some stiff short-arm jolts to 
the mid-section sells Battling Lee the idea of keeping 
me away, and a sudden left swing to the ribs crashes 
me against the ropes. 

I bounce off ’em into a straight right which cuts my 
ear. The mob jumps on the seats bawling for a knock¬ 
out, and I commencce to feel dizzy and look wildly at 
Nate for instructions. He hollers at me to clinch, but 
Battling Lee measures me with a left jab and then 
hooks his right to my stomach. This one come near 
being the business, but the bell stopped hostilities with 
us clinched in my corner. 

I am a very tired boy when I flop on the stool. Nate 
shoves a orange into my mouth for me to suck and 
jams the old ammonia under my nose. My left ear 
is bleeding badly, but caustic stopped that, the stuff 
biting into me till the water runs out of my eyes. Nate 
tells me to keep my mouth closed or a uppercut will 
tear my tongue off, and to stay as close to this guy as I 
can. 

I nod and run right out into a clinch with the bell. 


TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 131 


This ain’t what the ironworkers wants, and they howl 
for me to stand off and fight, while the bunch in the 
ringside boxes screams for me to hold on. Battling 
Lee wrenches away from me and lands solidly with 
a right to the head. I miss a left and right to the jaw, 
but connect with a right hook to the heart that stings 
Lee and makes him back water. 

There’s where I make a fatal mistake! Half goofy 
as I am, I think Lee’s gone. I rush in wide open to 
send over the finisher, and that’s what Lee’s waiting 
for. He ducks my right and crashes a overhand left 
to my jaw. I went down like he shot me through the 
heart, and I suffer from that one punch till long after 
the fight’s over. Honest, I’m in a trance from then on! 
I crawled to my feet in time to beat a count I can’t even 
hear, cover up,- and take a pasting I’ll remember to my 
dying day. That round is two years long! Lee’s too 
excited at the prospects of a knockout to time his 
blows, or I’d never of weathered the storm. As it is, I 
am floored three times in that horrible second round, 
and I’m on my shoulder blades at the bell. 

The next four rounds is no fight, but a nightmare! 
I don’t think I hit Battling Lee five solid punches, but 
he hit me with everything but the time-keeper’s watch. 
The house is in one continual uproar, with the iron¬ 
workers imploring Lee to murder me, and be done with 
it, and the guys in the boxes howling for the referee 
to stop the assassination. Lee is battling me from 
pillar to post with cutting, slashing punches that rip me 
to ribbons. I must of been a sight for a dispensary 
along about the fifth round. 


132 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Every time I stagger to my corner at the gong a 
flood of water from Nate’s bucket meets me halfways, 
and once I see water on Nate too, running down his 
cheeks from his eyes. But I see all this like a fellow 
in a dream, and I remember the din from the other side 
of the ropes bothers me worse than Lee’s wallops 
now. 

This Lee is raw too, don’t think he ain’t. He’s so 
mad because he can’t knock me stiff that he does every¬ 
thing but bite me! He butts, lays on me with that 
extry fifteen pounds, and rabbit punches me in the 
clinches, that chopping blow with the side of his glove 
on the back of my neck, just about paralyzing me for 
a minute afterwards. All I do is cover up, clinch, sock 
over a right when I think I see a opening, then—take 
it! 

When I come to my corner in the third round Nate 
says I am weeping, and during the rest between the 
fourth and fifth he says I sit there and laugh in a high 
voice till he thinks I have went cuckoo, and he’s scared 
silly. He keeps asking me should he throw in the 
sponge. I says if he throws in the sponge, he better 
be in Egypt when I come out of the ring! 

Early in the seventh round I commence to notice 
that Battling Lee’s tiring fast. He’s been doing all 
the walloping and he’s about punched himself out try¬ 
ing to stop me. Although I’m pretty well shopworn, 
I guess I ain’t as tired as he is, because I’ve only been 
catching, while he’s been pitching. About the middle 
of this round Lee cut my right eye with a straight left, 
and this is one of the times I think I see a opening for 


TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 133 


my right. I hook him under the chin and his head goes 
back like it’s on a hinge. 

They jump up in the ringside boxes and howl them¬ 
selves hoarse for me to follow up my advantage. I 
don’t need their advice. I’m on top of Lee like a wild¬ 
cat! I waste a dozen haymakers before my head 
steadies and I take aim. Then a right swing sends Lee 
to his knees and the mob groans. Lee waits for 
“eight” and gets up with a silly grin on his face, like 
he’s thinking “How did that happen?” I show him 
how it happened right away by dumping him on. his 
face with a left and right to the jaw. 

This time a dead silence seems to fall over the arena, 
broke only by the cheers of my swell rooters in the 
boxes. Lee looks dead to the world, laying on the 
floor, and them ironworkers has bet on him in a effort 
to get back the jack they drop on Shifty McTague. 
As the referee reaches “nine” without a flicker of a 
muscle from Mr. Lee, the timekeeper rings the bell, 
cutting the round short by twelve seconds and robbing 
me of a clean knockout! 

I skip to my corner looking like the battle field after 
the first day of the Marne. But appearances is deceiv¬ 
ing. I feel like a million dollars! The only thing 
bothers me is my right eye, which is closed as tight as 
a drum. During the rest Battling Lee’s handlers sur¬ 
round the referee and they seems to be quite a argu¬ 
ment going on. Lee is sprawled back in his stool, his 
head rolling around like his necks broke. Then the 
referee comes over to our corner and asks Nate if he’ll 
accept a draw. 


134 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


He says Battling Lee’s in bad shape and the iron¬ 
workers will surely mob us if I knock him cold in the 
next round and they go broke on the fight. A lot of 
swell sportsmen, hey? The referee’s advice is to take 
a draw and beat it. Nate looks out at the ugly crowd 
and tells me he thinks the referee’s right. Besides, he 
adds, I can see out of only one eye now, and if by any 
chance Lee comes around during the rest, he’ll probably 
knock me kicking in the next frame. 

I just let Nate go on talking without paying the 
slightest of attention. I’m thinking of that mole on 
Battling Lee’s chin which I’m going to sight at for the 
knockout in the next round. I’ll bring his guard down 
with a left to the stomach and then I’ll crash him with 
a right hook to the chin! That’s what I keep saying 
to myself over and over . . . left to the body and right 
to the chin, left to the body and right to the chin. Even 
humming it to the air of “Casey Jones.” When Nate 
stops for breath I says all his conversation to me is 
that much apple sauce. Then I says they must be some 
way he can get my right eye open. Nate grabs my 
head and turns it around so’s I can see the threatening 
mob. He says he’s been in these kind of jams at min¬ 
ing camps, and he’s positive we’ll never leave town 
alive if I knock Battling Lee for a row of silos. 

I says let’s stop Lee first and then we’ll take on the 
ironworkers. This Lee has played put and take with 
me for seven rounds and he’s fouled me at least a half 
dozen times. O. K. Now it’s my turn. Am I going 
to let a mob of bum sports do me out of my fun? Let 
’em try to stop me! Anyways, they ain’t no such thing 


TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 135 

as a “draw” in boxing, no matter what anybody says. 
One guy always has a shade on the other. I didn’t 
want no draws. I wanted to either knock ’em dead or 
get knocked and be done with it! 

Knockout Kelly butts in and tells Nate I’m right and 
to leave me win my fight. He points to a scar under 
his own eye and says that once when his eye was closed 
in a battle Nate made a little cut under it which let out 
the clogged blood, and he was able to force the lid 
open with his glove and keep stepping. I turn around 
to Nate. 

“Get out your penknife, Nate, and let’s go!” I says. 

I hear wild cheers right under my stool. It’s the 
dress-suited guys in the ringside boxes which has been 
taking all this in. Nate moans, but he opens his pen¬ 
knife and makes a slit under my right eye where it’s 
swollen. Then him and Kayo squeezes it. It don’t 
hurt—much. The referee waves Lee’s seconds out of 
the ring and the bell clangs. I got up slowly, holding 
my right eye open with my gloves till I get a fair view 
of Lee. I’m still humming: “A left to the body and 
a right to the chin!” Lee’s handlers yells for him to 
go after my bum eye, and he lets a panic-stricken left 
go which bounces off my hunched shoulder. Then I 
set myself and drove my left into his ribs. Down 
comes Lee’s guard and sock goes my right on that 
mole, just about the point of his chin. His knees 
buckle under him and the great big stiff slides under 
the lower rope to the floor, as cold as a shark’s eye! 

My friends in the boxes acts like raving maniacs, 
and silk hats and canes gets hurled in the air. But my 


136 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


little pals, the ironworkers, rushes the ring, howling 
murder! As they reach the ringside boxes, they see 
who’s who—their bosses—and the leaders faulter in 
their stride. One old guy gets up and begins bawling 
’em out plenty. What he’s saying I don’t know, ex¬ 
cept some of it is that if they don’t beat it they’ll find 
their jobs at the locomotive factory is a thing of the 
past. The next clear memory I got of anything I’m 
on the train for Drew Citv. 

About half ways back some men comes through our 
car and they seem a bit familiar. When they stop at 
the seat me and Nate’s occupying, it dawns on me that 
these is the babies which was in the ringside boxes at 
the fight. One of ’em, a dignified, gray-haired gent, 
bends over and pats my shoulder, saying he’s one of 
the big noises at the locomotive plant and he wants to 
apologize for the way his hired men acted. Then he 
shakes my hand and says I am a boy which will go a 
long ways, because I’ve got a fighting heart. The rest 
of the gents nods pleasantly to me and they all pass on. 

Well, Spence is at the station when we get to Drew 
City and he’s pumping my hand off when somebody 
calls his name. 

“Hello—my father’s here, Gale!” says Spence, kind 
of excited. “He wasn’t due until to-morrow—say, 
you’re going to meet dad right now!” 

Meet dad with my face looking like a war map! I 
pulled away, but dad’s in front of me. 

“Dad,” says Spence, “this is Gale Galen, who I told 
you about. He’s just won a bout at-” 

“At Irontown!” butts in dad, laughing at the ex- 



TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD 137 


pression which must of been on my face. He’s no less 
than the man which pat me on the shoulder on the 
train! “Young man,” he says to me, “some time I 
wish you would autograph the—er—my dress shirt. 
The front of it is spattered with the fighting blood of 
a he-man, and I’ll get a thrill every time I look at it!” 


ROUND FIVE 


“dieu et mon droit!” 

What Nate and Kayo Kelly never could under¬ 
stand is that this studying I wear tearing off at nights 
when I wasn’t doing my stuff in a ring was condition¬ 
ing me for a bigger battle than any I ever had at a 
fight club—a battle to boost myself out of the ash heap 
I was born to and make myself mean something! Say, 
if I ever get elected President, not that nobody has 
nominated me or nothing like that, but if I ever do, 
why, my first presidential act will be to draw up a law 
making ignorance a crime. D’ye think I’ll punish the 
ignorant guys themselves for it? No, sir! I’ll send 
the rich babies to jail which allows ignorance to be 
committed in their neighborhoods for want of the 
money to prevent it. The money which would feed 
and clothe the kids while they’re going to school and 
getting a chance to use their little heads for something 
else besides hatracks. Then they won’t be no more 
eight-year-old kids with forty-eight-year-old faces 
selling papers, working in coal mines, in cotton mills 
and canneries, when they ought to be in school! 

Don’t get the idea that while I was giving my brains 
these workouts I neglected my boxing tuition. Nate 
always followed me around with sarcastic remarks, 

138 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 


139 


advice, bawling outs, and the etc., which on top of all 
the physical culture I was getting every day used to 
steam me up. But I got to like it and look forward to 
my daily chores in the gym with a relish, because I 
knew it all meant something and it was all speeding me 
along to the top. The way I looked at it, as long as 
I was in the ring at all I might as well be a champ. 
I’d rather be a first-class laborer than a third-class 
king, no fooling. Say—even when I was a newsboy, 
I sold a mean paper and don’t think I didn’t! 

Well, having got all that off my manly chest, I will 
now get down to the business of the meeting, which 
is my fight with the middleweight champion, in which 
I knock him so cold his name could of been Battling 
Zero instead of Frankie Jackson, which it was. Al¬ 
though I knock Frankie stiff, I only get a draw on the 
account of a technicality. The technicality was that I 
am likewise knocked stiff myself. Laugh that off! 

Within a year after Nate has talked me into laying 
aside my white coat and apron for a pair of boxing 
gloves, I have fought my way to the right for a scuffle 
with the middleweight champion. But it takes two to 
make a quarrel and the champ don’t wish to box me 
no more than he wishes he had pneumonia. He just 
simply won’t romp with me and that’s all they is to it. 
Instead of that, he plays around with the set-ups, 
knocking over kids which don’t know a left hook from 
the referee’s tonsils and collecting anywheres from ten 
to twenty-five thousand bucks for each of these aggra¬ 
vated assaults. 


140 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Nate’s worried a lot about the champ refusing to do 
business with us, because honest I was growing like 
New York. I’m having a terrible time keeping down 
to the middleweight limit and Nate’s crazy to have me 
fight the champion while I can still make the weight 
for him, because he knows I’ll win the title as sure as 
salmon comes under the head of fish. But the champ 
turns a deaf ear to all our pitiful pleadings to come 
and get his pasting and be done with it. Even when 
the newspapers puts him on the pan and Nate says he 
can have all the money and we’ll just take our expenses, 
why, the safe-playing, money-grabbing middleweight 
king just laughs at us and then jumps out to some slab 
like Gazunk, la., and flattens some sap which couldn’t 
win a fight if he had the only ticket on one in a raffle. 

“If I can’t toss you in a ring with this hothouse 
champeen in a couple of months, you won’t be able to 
make 158 any more than I can make a clock!” moans 
Nate to me one day. “Here I baby you along, rate 
your fights till you’ve flattene4 everything but the 
Catskill Mountains and now when you’re a cinch for 
a title this big boloney won’t mingle with us!” He 
walks up and down the room, wringing his hands. 

“I’ll pick a fight with him on the street, hey?” I 
says, hoping to cheer him up. 

“You do and I’ll help him clout you!” hollers Nate. 
“How many times do I have to tell you never fight 
nobody for nothin’? Never raise your hands unless 
they’s pennies in it for both of us—don’t ever forget ’at 
part of it. I’m goin’ to take you around to every fight 
club where ’at synthetic champ starts and we’ll chal- 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT 1 ” 141 

lenge him from the ring till every time he hears your 
name he’ll get convulsions!” 

So we did. But the champ does not get convulsions. 
Every time he fought around New York I get intro¬ 
duced from the ring and publicly challenge him to 
fight me. Once I got a idea, and after the announcer 
has bellered my challenge I whisper in his ear to add: 
“This is the eighteenth consecutive time ‘Six-Second' 
Smith has challenged Frankie Jackson for a champion¬ 
ship bout. He will continue challenging till the cham¬ 
pion is shamed into fighting him!” The announcer 
grins and repeats that after me and half the crowd 
laughs while the other half cheers. Does that bother 
the champ? Why, the big stiff just looks up from his 
corner where he’s waiting to go on with some dub, 
gives me a good-natured grin and says: “You tell ’em, 
kid; I bet you’re the snake’s hips, no foolin’!” 

I would of smacked him then and there, only Nate 
grabs me and hustles me out of the ring to the tune 
of mingled laughs and cheers. When we get down to 
our seats, Nate turns to me kind of mad-sarcastic. 

“Listen,” he says. “I’ve tried everything I know to 
get this gil to fight us and no can do! Now you claim 
you ain’t always goin’ to be a scrapper—you state you 
got too much brains to be a pug. You’re always 
studyin’ and clownin’ with ’em books and the like when 
you ain’t workin’. O. K.—less see if it mentis any¬ 
thing! Less see if your eighty-six carat brain can 
dope a way to get this champ in a ring with us. If 
you can’t, I’m goin’ to throw all them books of yours 
in the ash can. Now go on, do your stuff! But 


142 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


my mind is already at work on this problem and I 
don’t even condescend to answer. 

Well, if Edison had done the thinking I do that 
night and half the next day, Heavens knows what he 
would of invent, but what / invent is a way to get the 
middleweight champ into a ring with me—object, 
fisteycuffs! The minute this clever idea hits me I go 
looking for Judy to get her opinions of my scheme, 
but she’s in the place where she always seems to be 
those days when I want her and that’s elsewhere. 
Anyways, I go down in the kitchen and there’s Knock¬ 
out Kelly with one of Mrs. Willcox’s aprons on, peel¬ 
ing a wicked potato. Kayo is one of the toughest 
welters which ever clipped a chump on the chin, but 
around the house he’s as mild as any June you ever 
seen. He’s stopped One-Round Michaels in New York 
two nights previous, but before Michaels went to 
dreamland he closed Kayo’s right eye for auld lang 
sang. So Kayo is having no little trouble undressing 
potatoes with only one eye taking any interest in the 
matter. Nate is mixing a batter under the direction of 
Mrs. Willcox, and when he sees me he waves the mixer 
at me. 

“Get out of our kitchen,” he says. “Get out of our 
kitchen, or else grab a towel and get busy on them 
supper dishes! What d’ye think y’are, a guest here?” 

I meekly grabbed a towel and commence giving Mrs. 
Willcox’s china set a good rub down and while I’m 
doing this I tell Nate the scheme I have doped out to 
force the middleweight champ to give me a crack at 
his title. Nate is keeping on mixing this batter while 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 


143 


Em telling him, and by the time I get through he’s so 
excited that he’s mixed the batter all over the table, all 
over his clothes, and all over the floor, and what Mrs. 
Willcox says to him was plenty. I will tell you my 
scheme like I told Nate and I only hope you ain’t mix¬ 
ing no batter while you’re reading this. 

Well, my scheme was just this— I aim to show up as 
a handler in the corner of every hoy the champ fights 
from then on! How’s that for a piece of figuring? 
The way I look at it, after this guy sees me across the 
ring watching him and seconding the fellow he’s fight¬ 
ing about a dozen times, why, I will begin to get on 
his nerves. He’ll get to thinking about me being there 
and he’ll come to look for me and the first thing you 
know he’ll be willing to do anything to get rid of me. 
He’ll be so crazy mad at me that he’ll crave me in a 
ring so’s he can ruin me. Then I’ll get a bout with 
him and that’s all I want! 

Nate says this scheme is the lion’s mane and I have 
missed my calling. I should of been a Pullman con¬ 
ductor, says Nate, which thinks a Pullman conductor 
has got a better job than President G. Harding. 

Without waiting to hear what you think of the 
scheme, I will tell you that it worked to perfection. I 
showed up as a second in the other boy’s corner just 
seven times when the champ had enough. At first he 
seemed to get quite a giggle out of it and he used to 
work his man close to the ropes where I’m sitting with 
the water bucket and sponge and he’d call down all 
kinds of nasty cracks at me. Like, for the example, 
he’d say: “Here’s what you LI get, Stupid!” and with 


144 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


that he’d bounce his unlucky adversus almost at my 
feet. I never made a comeback. I’d just sit there 
staring up at him until after a while he got in the 
habit of looking over his shoulder at me to see if I’m 
there. He just couldn’t help himself. When he got 
pasted on the chin a few times on the account of that 
bad habit of looking for me, why, he give in. 

One fight he had, with my handling the boy he’s 
boxing, I’ll never forget. Here’s a kid taking a ter¬ 
rible pasting from a fellow I know I can trim the same 
way I know this is America, or even more so than that. 
A little aggressiveness would of turned the tide of 
battle for my man, but the fact that he’s fighting a 
champion licks him. Every time he comes to his corner, 
I’d tell this boy—Young Hunter, his name was—I’d 
tell him: “This guy is a mark for a right uppercut, at 
least try one!” And this sap would shake his head 
and pant: “Try nothin’, I couldn’t hit this baby with 
a medicine ball! He must be good—he’s the champ, 
ain’t he? I only hope I can stay the limit, ’at’s all!” 

That’s the stuff that losers is made of, in boxing 
and everything else, too. Why, if I ever tried in my 
life, I’d try against the champ—the champ of anything! 
Suppose you do lose? Why, all you lose is the fight 
itself, ain’t it? You win with yourself, because you 
know you tried your darndest and something inside of 
you says: “Atta boy!” It’s got to! 

Well, we finally sign with the middleweight champ, 
with no more dickering over the articles than they was 
at the Peace Conference. About all Frankie Jackson 
didn’t insist on me doing was that I should check 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 


145 


my right arm at the box office the night of the fight. 
I have got to make 158 ringside, while he can come in 
at catchweights. The muss is to be twelve rounds at 
Jersey City where no referee’s decision is allowed, so 
the only way I can win the title is to knock Frankie 
stiff. By a odd coincidence, this happens to be my in¬ 
tentions so I don’t moan over that part of it. The 
champ is to get $25,000, win, lose or draw, while my 
wages is to be $3,500, and how Nate ever pried that 
out of them hard-boiled promoters is a mystery to me 
to this day! 

I train for this scuffle at Drew City, where I trained 
for all my brawls and nearly everybody in the town 
drops in every day to see us work out. From three to 
five in the afternoon, when Nate lets ’em in for fifteen 
cents a head, the place was just packed. 

But there’s one guy which didn’t show up at the 
training camp no more and that’s Rags Dempster. 
This dizzy dumbell was too busy hanging around Judy 
or calling her up on the phone. I couldn’t dope out 
how he really stood with her—one minute she’d curl 
her lip at him, the next minute he seems to be sitting 
pretty with her. I try hard to keep out of his way, for 
this bird affected me like a red shirt affects a bull. I 
don’t hunt trouble, because when I get steamed up 
I can’t laugh matters off, something has got to fall— 
the other fellow, or in the contrary! 

Amongst the assorted customers which came into 
the gym to watch us do our stuff was Lem Garfield. 
At that time Lem was still what Spence Brock called a 
“miss and thrope.” I pass that one. All I know is 


10 


146 FIGHTING BLOOD 

that Lem had a grouch against the whole human race 
and he didn’t care who won it! By studying law at 
night he had advanced from the Elite Haberdashery 
to doing this and that in the law office of O’Leary & 
Kaplan and he predicted a great future for himself. 
One thing was certain and that was that Lem couldn’t 
miss being a large help to O’Leary & Kaplan on the 
account of Judge Tuckerman thinking the world and 
all of him. The judge gave Lem priveleges in his 
courtroom which would startle Europe and used to 
burn the other lawyers up. 

Lem was so proud of being even a half-fledged 
lawyer that he asks me to go over to Judge Tucker- 
man’s court one day with him and listen while he 
handles a couple of cases. Well as this particular court 
of law has got a vaudeyville show looking like a digni¬ 
fied funeral, I went with the greatest of pleasure. Out 
of a clear sky on the ways over to the court, Lem com¬ 
mences to wildy pan what he calls “the interests” and 
“soulless corporations.” I don’t know what it’s all 
about, till in a couple of minutes it come out that when 
the Elite Haberdashery give Lem the gate he tried 
to plaster himself on the payroll of a soulless cor¬ 
poration, but after one attempt he claimed a foul and 
quit. 

“You give up too easy, Lem,” I says. “Lots of fel¬ 
lows has begun with big corporations as office boys 
and the like and worked themselves up to rich mil¬ 
lionaires by simply-” 

But that’s all the encouragement the learned counsel 
wants and stopping dead in the middle of the street. 



“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 147 

Lem squares off and addresses me like I’m the Supreme 
Court. 

“Years ago mebbe a ambitious young feller could 
start with a big corporation and work his way up,” 
he begins, in a kind of loud voice, “But, gentlemen of 
the—eh—but, Gale, he kinnot do it now! If he’s got 
any gumption at all, his ambition’s killed when he ap¬ 
plies for work. Have you ever saw the application 
blank a feller applyin’ for the portfolio of, say, office 
clerk, has got to fill out for some of them big corpora¬ 
tions? Well if you’re the kind of a feller which 
wants to answer in detail questions so private that 
they’d make you smack down your best friend if he 
asked ’em, if you’re that kind of a feller, I say to you 
this afternoon, why go ahead! If bein’ asked to fill 
in rough sketches of your mother, your father, the 
status quo of your habits, conduct, religion and politics, 
any sicknesses you’re addicted to, what debts you owe 
and why—if you’re the kind of a feller which will 
supply all that personal information in return for a 
fifteen-dollar a week job, why do so. But not Lem 
Garfield—I think too much of my independence!” 

He almost bellers the last part of it, slapping himself 
heartily on the chest, and as it is a hobby of mine 
never to attract no undue attention on the street, why 
I tried to quiet him down. Before I can say two and a 
half words though, Lem’s got his second wind. 

“It ain’t the Big Boss which is responsible for that 
kind of a application blank,” he goes on. “A application 
blank which loses them big, preedatory corporations 
plenty of good material every day in the shape of 


148 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


bright, but proud young fellers like me! As the matter 
and fact, I bet the average president of a big firm 
would throw them blanks out of his office if he ever 
seen one. No sir, the feller which gets that application 
blank up is the same pinhead which has another blank 
printed which visitors to the office is supposed to fill out. 
A blank which has sent thousands of dollars away from 
many a firm—sent away, ragin’ mad, manys the man 
with a big proposition. I got one of them blanks with 
me—look here!” 

With that he pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket 
like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a silk hat. Here’s 
what it says on the paper: 

Mr. 

Desires to see Mr.. 

Regarding. 

“Now tell me,” howls Lem, “now tell me, if you 
come in a man’s office with a big deal to swing his way 
or a personal matter to talk over, would you fill out 
that insultin’ fule paper for the office boy to peruse?” 

I don’t get no chance to answer because we’re arriv¬ 
ing in the courtroom, but I must say this—a few weeks 
after that I went into Lem’s office to talk over a in¬ 
vestment with him and before I can see him I got to 
fill out a blank practically exactly like the one he 
showed me that day. I guess a man’s ideas on lots 
of things changes with his position in life, hey? 

Well, Judge Tuckerman is just coming into court 
when we get there and the first thing he does is ex- 





“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 


149 


change snappy nods with old Ajariah Stubbs which 
always had a box, you might say, at the judge’s hear¬ 
ings. Judge Tuckerman and Ajariah was once the 
champion quoit pitching team of Sussex County, but 
rheumatism turned ’em into checker players. The 
first case before the judge that day is a sport from 
New York charged with speeding and reckless driving 
on the State Road through Drew City. Judge Tuck¬ 
erman asks him what he’s got to say about it and 
make it snappy and the minute the prisoner opens his 
mouth to speak, why, the judge pronounces him guilty. 
The victim hollers for a trial by jury, but the judge 
waves him away. He says you never can tell what a 
chicken-hearted jury will do, but he knows darn well 
what he’s going to do and he fines this fellow a hun¬ 
dred dollars even. This wakes the prisoner up and he 
demands to know how Judge Tuckerman figures a fine 
as heavy as that for a first offense. 

“Twenty dollars for speedin’,” says the judge, glar¬ 
ing at his prey over his cheaters, “thutty for reckless 
drivin’, forty for argyin’ with the court and ten which 
I saved ye by not lettin’ ye have a trial by jury, in which 
case ye would of had to hire a lawyer!” He bangs the 
desk with his gavel, “Ah—ptu!” he says, “bring on 
the next scoundrel!” 

The next case panics me and causes Judge Tucker¬ 
man to bar me from the courtroom for laughing out 
loud. This was Ollie Yerks, which wants to sue the 
Palace Eating House for assault and battery and a 
week’s salary as cook. Ollie claims he got fired without 
no notice and for no reason at all. Judge Tuckerman 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


150 

calls on Okie’s ex-boss, Red Fisher, to testify. 

“Well, Jedge, your honor, sir,” says Red. ‘‘It’s this 
way, I’m what you call a nervous man—all aquiver, 
is what I mean, Jedge. Well, Ollie here gits himself 
a pair of shoes which squeaks somethin’ scandalous 
when he walks around my kitchen. Every time he 
takes a step them squeakin’ shoes goes through me 
like a knife—me bein’ that nervous, like I told you, 
Jedge. So I says, ‘Ollie’ I says, ‘Ollie, you got to git 
you some other shoes. Them squeakin’ shoes is drivin’ 
me crazy!’ Jedge, he jest laffs. Well, next day he’s 
still got on them same shoes and there he is walkin’ 
around my kitchen, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, 
squeak! Jedge, I git to tremblin’ and quiverin’ some¬ 
thin’ terrible. So I goes out and I says, ‘Ollie, either 
you or them shoes has got to go. I can’t stand that 
squeakin’ and that’s all they is to it!’ This time, Jedge, 
your honor, he gives me a ugly look. Well, Jedge, 
yistiddy, he comes in wearin’ a pair of canvas sneak¬ 
ers. He walks back to the kitchen without makin’ a 
sound. I’m jest goin’ to thank him, when what does 
he do but sit down and take off them sneakers and put 
back on them squeaky shoes again! Jedge, like I told 
you, I’m nervous. I listen to that squeak, squeak, 
squeak, squeak for about five minutes and I’m jumpin’ 
and shakin’ like a maniac. So I run back to the kitchen 
and smacked Ollie down and throwed him out of my 
place! That’s all, Jedge, your honor.” 

“You want your job back, Ollie?” says Judge Tuck- 
erman. 

“Yes sir, I do!” says Ollie. 


I 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 151 

4 ‘All right. You go back and hereafter you come to 
work barefooted!” says the judge,. He bangs with his 
gavel, “Ah, ptu—next case!” 

That’s more than I can take! I get a bit hysterical 
and the judge has me put out. So I don’t get to see 
Lem lawyering after all. 

Well, about a week before I fight the middleweight 
champ, Spence Brock asks me up to his house one 
night. He says his father wants to see me and if he 
had said the King of Brazil wanted to see me, I 
couldn’t of been more surprised! John T. Brock is 
president of the Irontown Locomotive Works and you 
know what a locomotive costs. Why, even if he only 
sells one locomotive a week, Spence’s dad must have 
a bank roll which would make a millionaire grind his 
teeth with envy. They live part of the time in a 
sheik’s palace on the lake in Drew City and they got 
servants and autos and motor boats to the extent of 
galore. 

Anyways, I can’t imagine what Mr. Brock can want 
to see me for. On the ways up to the house with 
Spence, who’s wishing out loud that I was going to 
Newport with him, I can’t stand the strain no longer 
so I ask him what he thinks is the reason for his father 
sending for me. Spence laughs. 

“I don’t think, I know!” he says. “If father has a 
weakness, it’s boxing. Lie never misses a big fight, 
no matter where it’s held. Well, then, think of the 
treat for him to talk to one of the principals in a 
world’s championship battle, almost on the eve of the 
bout. Why, he’ll have the time of his life tonight. 



152 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Honestly, Gale, he’ll be more pleased than if you were 
the biggest man in Wall Street, bless his old heart!” 

Well, we finally get to the house and the butler lets 
us in, taking my cap and the classy belted raincoat. I 
was featuring then, like I’m the Duke of Diphtheria 
or the equivalent. I got on my best blue serge suit 
with a crease in it you could slice ham with, patent- 
leather pumps, black silk socks, a white silk shirt, and 
a expensive two-dollar blue silk tie. I got a wow of a 
diamond scarf pin in it, and altogether I check up 
pretty snappy, what I mean. Yet in this palace where 
you sink to your ankles walking across the rugs, with 
curving chairs and oil paintings and flashing mirrors 
greeting you at every turn, why, I feel in the whisper¬ 
ing stage, like once when I visit the Academy of Fine 
Arts in Philadelphia, Pa. 

Mr. Brock is sitting out on the glass-covered pazzaza 
at a little table and he certainly does look grand—just 
like one of them wealthy bankers does in the movies. 
He’s a great, big, good-looking, powerfully built man, 
a man which could no doubt been a good heavyweight 
when he was younger. They’s just a bit of gray at 
his temples and sitting there in his Tuxedo he sure 
checks up perfect, for a fact! Well, I’m a little bit 
scared to be standing there before all these dollars and 
don’t think I ain’t, but Mr. Brock gets up and shakes 
my hand and actually thanks me for coming over, can 
you imagine that? Then we all sit down and after 
we get the state of the weather and this kind of thing 
all settled, why, I soon put him at his ease with me. 

Mr. Brock tells me I look fit to lick my weight in 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 


153 


wildcats and he likewise says that him and a party of 
friends will have a ringside box at my fight with 
Frankie Jackson. He tells me he’s saw the middle¬ 
weight champion start a few times and he thinks I’ll 
be too young and strong for him. I says I hope so. 
Then Mr. Brock wants to know have / ever saw the 
champ fight and I told him how I had hounded him 
into a match with me by appearing as a second in the 
corners of the guys he fought. This seems to give 
Mr. Brock quite a kick. He slaps the table and laughs 
his head off and his voice is as deep as the Pacific. 

'‘By thunder!” he says. “That sort of thinking is 
worthy of a better cause, my boy! What do you do 
when you’re not fighting or training—how do you 
spend your time?” 

“Studying,” I says. Spence moves his chair closer 
and keeps looking from his father to me. Spence 
thinks I’m the elephant’s instep and I can see how 
anxious he is for me to make a hit with his dad. 

“Studying?” says Mr. Brock, sitting up. He’s got 
a habit of putting a cigar in and out of his mouth, but 
he never seems to light it. “Studying what?” 

“Everything, sir,” I says. “People, books, things 
that happen to me. I—I—well, I’m only going to be 
a prize fighter for temporarily. After that, I—” I 
kind of trailed off, thinking what in the Alabama does 
Mr. Brock care about my plans ? But he seems to. 

'‘Yes—after that, what?” he asks me. I see from his 
face that he ain’t kidding, so I went on. 

“After that, I mean after I have made enough money 
at this game so’s I can knock off for a while and look 


154 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


around, why, I’m going to pick out something better 
and make good at it!” I says. “My first idea was to 
box myself into a college education, but I guess I’ll be 
too old to start there by the time I have the bank roll. 
I’ll have to pick up knowledge from here and there.” 

“Well, son,” says Mr. Brock, kind of thoughtful, 
and he flicks the end of his cigar like he’s knocking 
off the ash, though it ain’t even lit. “Well, son, I 
never went to college either. I—er—picked up know¬ 
ledge from here and there, as you put it, myself. I’m 
going to send my boy to Princeton, of course, but I’m 
not sure in my own mind which of you is going to the 
better school! Adversity has given the world most of 
its greatest men, just as affluence has killed ambition 
in many who might have been great. In fact, I rather 
believe that had I been the son of wealthy parents, my 
boy would now be the son of poor ones! Well, this 
conversation is growing rather heavy, isn’t it?” 

He breaks off suddenly with a smile, throws away 
his cigar and picking up another one he bites the end 
off and sticks it in his mouth, but still he don’t light 
it. Before I went home I bet he done that a dozen 
times without smoking once. Even these well-to-do 
millionaires has their little odd tricks, hey? Anyhow, 
Mr. Brock then swings the talk around to boxing. 
Gee, about the only big fight he’s missed was the 
Battle of Bunker Hill! He remembers exactly how 
many rounds all the big championship battles went and 
even what punch won ’em. 

His favorite scrapper was Bob Fitzsimmons, and 
he tells us a dozen tales about Fitz’s fights, seeming to 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 


155 


enjoy ’em as much as we do and me and Spence just 
sits there open-mouthed like kids hearing bedtime 
stories. But every now and then, why, Mr. Brock 
would switch the conversation to me and my chances 
of getting somewheres, so that without hardly know¬ 
ing it I have told him my complete life’s history from 
the time I left the nursery to the time I entered his 
house. 

He acts awful interested and he asks me lots of 
questions. I told him I thought I had a bent for sales¬ 
manship and he tells me to go to it, because salesman¬ 
ship’s as big a game as any in the world. He advises 
me to take a correspondent’s course on business from 
some good mail-order school and likewise to try my 
hand at selling things —anything good —whenever I get 
the chance. 

Just before I’m going home Mr. Brock says that he’s 
awful glad to of had this talk with me, but gladder 
still that Spence had showed the good sense to pick 
me as a friend. From now on, he says, he’ll have his 
eye on me, and he wants to talk to me again. If I ever 
want anything, let him know. 

I walk back to Mrs. Willcox’s boarding house on 
air, and that’s a fact. Imagine me spending the eve¬ 
ning with a full-fledged millionaire! And this Mr. 
Brock is a prince too, even, if he has got a million. 
He couldn’t of been nicer to me if I had of been up 
there to buy one of his locomotives—in fact, he done 
everything but give me one for a present! Spence is 
tickled silly at the way the visit worked out. He was 
crazy to have me make good with his father, and to 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


156 

have his father make good with me, and apparently 
that’s what we done. 

Well, I picked out a correspondent’s school and 
wrote for their course in salesmanship, and Judy helped 
me study it at nights. It was awful interesting too. It 
gave sample sales talks to hurl at the victim you are 
seeking to sell something to, and I tried out a lot of ’em 
on Judy, for what I was trying to sell her was myself! 
I also practice these sales arguments in the privacies 
of my room when I’m alone, and one day Nate walks in 
and hears me almost in a frenzy trying to sell myself 
a order. When Nate finds out I been arguing with 
myself out aloud, he runs over to old Doc Talley, 
which fills me full of bromides and says if I don’t 
stop smoking I’ll kill myself. I never smoked in my 
life, but I wouldn’t tell the doc that and make him feel 
bad. 

Besides helping me with my study of the mysteries 
of salesmanship, Judy kept acting as my teacher in 
other courses, and while it’s hard to keep your mind on 
anything but Judy while she’s around, why, I made 
some headway at that. The way we did was like this: 

> every night Judy marks a certain subject for me to 
read in my encyclopedia, and then the next day she asks 
me all about it, and I repeat what I remember. In 
that way all this knowledge got plastered in my mind, 
and it stuck there. For instance, ask me about Henry 
the 8th, wireless, the city of Washington, who in¬ 
vented the telegraph and why, or what’s radium, etc., 
etc.—ask me any of that and I’ll give you the low down 
in a flash! How bout that? 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 


157 


In the encyclopedia I read about a guy which must 
of been one of my descendants. In round numbers, 
his name was Claudius Galen and he bounded around 
during the year 200 D. C. While they’s few which 
can now recall him personally, they’s a whole column 
in the book about him. It seems he was a Greek 
doctor and he clicked off a lot of little booklets about 
medicine, and they was just good enough to get his 
name in the encyclopedia. Well, don’t be surprised 
if my name don’t get in there right under his in a couple 
of years. “Galen, Gale—Newsboy, errand boy, print¬ 
er’s devil, bobbin boy, soda jerk, boxer, business king!” 
Just for the fun of it, look in your encyclopedia about 
two years from now. 

Well, the night before I am due to dally and toy with 
the middleweight champ, Barbara Worthington, one 
of the rich and swell-looking flappers from the prep 
school, stakes herself to a dance at her marvelous home. 
As the richest people in Drew City, the Spencer- 
Brocks, has kind of took me under their wings—at 
least, Spence and his father has—why, I ain’t barred 
from these social whirls no more like I used to be when 
I was jerking soda for Ajariah Stubbs. I get a regular 
invitation in the mail, though, of course, it’s addressed 
to “Gale Galen,” and not “Six-Second Smith.” As a 
matter and fact, I don’t believe Barbara Worthington 
even knew I’m a fighter, or just what I am doing since 
I left Stubbs’s soda fountain. Well, she knows now! 

Rags Dempster blows around in his car in the after¬ 
noon and wants to know will Judy go to Barbara’s 
dance with him. Judy says no can do, as she’s going 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


158 

with me. This gets Rags red-headed, and I know he’s 
going to pull some foul play on me for revengeance 
before the night’s over, but I should worry when the 
best-looking girl in Drew City or any other city turns 
down a rich man’s son and air for me! Nate acts like 
a raving maniac when he hears I’m going to a dance the 
night before I fight for the world’s middleweight title, 
rand him and Kayo Kelly hides my best clothes so’s I 
can’t go out. But I fool ’em by getting a ready-made 
tuxedo and all that goes with it at the New York 
Store, and staying away from Mrs. Willcox’s boarding 
house all afternoon with it on so’s they can’t lock me 
in my room. I met Judy at Stubbs’s drug store at 
eight like we framed and everything was jake. 

I wish you could of saw Judy the way she looked 
that night—just looking at her, a thing I did practically 
constantly, give me more kick than you get from knock¬ 
ing the other boy for a row of silos. She’s wearing 
a lowish cut evening gown made out of blue, and if she 
don’t look like something from Heaven then Lake 
Michigan don’t look the least bit wet. Oh, what a 
knockout she is —why, she’d baffle the guy which 
baffled description! She couldn’t of been no nicer to 
me than she was without causing talk, but still and all 
I have a terrible time at Barbara Worthington’s racket. 
The reason is because I don’t dance a stroke! 

The minute we get to that party about ninety guys, 
with Rags in the lead, rushes at Judy, grabs her pro¬ 
gram, and begins writing their names all over it for 
dances. The other girls looks daggers at her, and I 
look bombs at the boys! Judy manages to save me 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 


159 


four dances, which we got to sit out on the account of 
my fatal unability to shake a wicked hoof. The re¬ 
sults is that about every time I start a conversation with 
her, and I’m doing myself some good, some clown 
butts in with: “Pardon me, this is my dance, I believe ?” 
and I got to sit there like a sap and see the girl I am 
insane about dancing around in the arms of one of 
these dumbells. When she dances with Rags, why, I 
can’t even watch it! Believe me, a guy at a party which 
can’t dance has as much fun as a codfish would have 
in the middle of a desert! 

But when me and Judy does get a chance to go out 
on the lawn and talk, I work fast. Judy wishes me 
the best of luck in my scrap with Frankie Jackson, and 
she thinks it’s great that Mr. Brock has took such a 
interest in me. But between you and me, I think it’s 
even greater that she has! 

Well, Rags drops out on the lawn every now and 
then, as he hates to let Judy get out of his sight. 
Every time he runs into me during the courses of the 
evening he keeps making cracks which would cause a 
rabbit to smack a bulldog right in the face. Insulting 
me in that silky oily manner of his, the words them¬ 
selves not meaning so much, but the way he says ’em 
meaning plenty! About a hour of watching Judy being 
carried off to dance by these fellows and listening to 
Rags’s sarcastical cracks has made me one continual 
blaze. Rags knows he can ride me heavy this night 
without no risk to himself, because, naturally enough, 
I wouldn’t think of smacking him for a row of Hindu 
parsnip bowls in Barbara Worthington’s home. 


i 6 o 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


However, when Rags sees he ain’t getting no action 
by picking on me, he plays his ace! I am standing out 
on the porch looking in at the dancers and waiting 
for Judy to come out, when along comes Barbara’s 
mother and Rags. I drawed back in the darkness so’s 
they won’t bump into me, and I hear Rags telling 
Barbara’s mother that he thinks, she ought to know that 
one of her daughter’s guests got in under false pre¬ 
tenses. He says the boy they call Gale Galen is really 
a prize fighter named Six-Second Smith, and he will 
point me out to her. 

I got one look at Mrs. Worthington’s face when she 
hears that “prize fighter” thing, and that look is plenty 
for me! I am starting for my things, when I think 
I better wait and tell Judy I’m leaving. But I don’t 
get much chance. Mrs. Worthington and Rags has 
saw me, and the next thing the butler comes over with 
my hat and coat, looks at me like I’m something the 
cat dragged in on a rainy night, and says in a zero 
voice that he’ll show me the exit. Rags walks over to 
us, grinning like a hyena, which is what he reminds 
me of very much. 

Then the music stops inside and Judy comes out 
with the fathead she’s been dancing with. She 
sees me and Rags standing there, and the butler 
holding my hat and coat, and she trips over to us 
looking questions by the score. Rags makes no at¬ 
tempt to hide the pure delight he feels at me get¬ 
ting the air and getting it publicly too, because lots 
of the others is whispering together and looking over 
at us. 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT !” 


161 

“What's the matter, Gale?” says Judy, passing Rags 
up. 

“Why—eh nothing, Judy,” I says, taking my things 
from this lump of ice called the butler. “Nothing at 
all, I—I'm going out and get some air. I’ll come back 
to take you home at whatever time you say—that’s if 
you want me to come back for you.” 

“Oh, why lie about it!” butts in Rags with a snarl. 
“Mrs. Worthington has quite naturally refused to have 
her home turned into a lounging place for prize fight¬ 
ers, and, of course, she resents her daughter having 
had to associate with one, even for-” 

He stops short when Judy swings around on him and 
gives him a glare. Then she turns back to me and 
smiles her sweetest. “Wait until I get my wraps, 
Gale,” she says, “and I’ll go with you!” 

They’s two faces you should of saw—mine and 
Rags! 

Well, it broke perfect for me, and I could almost 
of thanked Rags for getting me the gate. Not being 
fluent at dancing, I didn’t like the party anyways, and 
would of busted away during the first five minutes if 
Judy hadn’t of been there. As it is, I got her all to 
myself on the account of Rags knifing me. She prob¬ 
ably never would of left if I’d asked her; now she gets 
her cloak and takes my arm, paying absolutely no at¬ 
tention to the frantic Barbara Worthington, the cuckoo 
Rags, and the pleading guys which had dancing en¬ 
gagements with her. When we get outside we find 
the night is perfection itself, soft and warm and a new 
moon shining its head off. Borrowing from the nerve 



FIGHTING BLOOD 


162 

I was saving for my clash with the middleweight 
champ the next night, I ask Judy will she take a walk 
to the lake with me, as it’s still fairly early. Judy waits 
so long to answer that I’m just on the brinks of beg¬ 
ging her pardon for asking, when she suddenly says 
“Yes!” and then I’m almost afraid to breathe for fear 
I’ll bust my luck. She stops me from getting too senti¬ 
mental when I commence thanking her for leaving the 
party with me. She says she could hardly do anything 
else when her escort was asked to leave. We are sitting 
on the bank of the lake, hid from everything but each 
other. 

“Then you didn’t do it for me, Judy?” I says, terrible 
disappointed. “You mean you would of left with 
anyone under the same conditions?” 

Judy commences plucking at the grass and keeps 
looking away from me. 

“I wouldn’t have been there with anyone, Gale,” she 
says slowly, “or— here!” 

Well, I ain’t exactly stupid, and the rest of the 
conservation is nobody’s business, now, is it? 

We got home about eleven, and Nate’s sitting on 
the front porch waiting for me with a four-alarm fire 
in each eye. He says nothing at all till Judy goes up¬ 
stairs, and then he gives me a terrible tongue lashing 
for staying up late the night before the biggest fight 
of my life. When he gets all through I says I agree 
with every word he’s said, and was he ever in love? 
With a wild yell Nate throws up his hands and, grab¬ 
bing a pillow from the porch hammock, he chases me 
upstairs to bed. 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 163 

At a quarter of ten the next night I am clambering 
through the ropes at the Superba A. C. in Jersey City, 
with Nate, Kayo Kelly, and Shiney Jepps, my handlers, 
trailing after me. For the first time since I been a 
leather pusher I get a frenzied outburst of applause 
before I show my wares. The reason for that ain’t 
hard to guess. I am going to fight a champion, and 
the average fight fan loves to see a champion un¬ 
champed. After I rub my shoes in the rosin and sit 
down on the stool in the corner Nate has picked out, 
I look around at the ten thousand-odd excited cus¬ 
tomers which has come to see me and Frankie Jackson 
prove that self-defense is not only a plea but a art. 
The champ has resorted to the old trick of making me 
sit out there in the ring and wait for him, the objects 
being to get me nervous; but that’s a waste of time on 
Frankie’s part, because I have become nerve-proof. 
I’m telling the truth when I tell you that this battle 
don’t bother me no more than any other. As far as 
that part of it goes, no matter if I fight Dempsey, I’ll 
never again get the kick out of a box fight that I did 
out of my first one! I guess it’s the same way about 
a man’s first anything —hey? 

No—it’s the crowd which gives me the kick now. 
It always does, and I look around and study ’em with 
as much interest as they’re studying every move I 
make. For a few minutes I got the undivided atten¬ 
tion of bricklayers, bankers, lawyers, pickpockets, 
doctors, shipping clerks, yeggs, actors, sporting men, 
and other leather pushers who may box me later and 
come to see what I got. All around the ring, right 



164 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


under the ropes in a solid bank, is the hard-boiled sport 
writers and their telegraph operators. Behind ’em the 
ringside boxes with plenty of guys in evening dress. 
I see Mr. Brock, and his friends, and he nods to me. 
I don’t know whether or not he wants me to recognize 
him when he’s with his swell friends, but I take a 
chance and wave a hand at him. I get a broad smile 
and a couple of nods back. Shiney Jepps is massaging 
my stomach. Kayo Kelly, which has just knocked 
Georgie Neill stiff in the semi-final, is working on the 
back of my neck and kidding me. Nate’s bending down 
over the ropes, talking to the reporters. I rinse my 
mouth from the water bottle and wonder whether I’ll 
leave the ring on a shutter or middleweight champion 
of the world. That’s the only two things can happen. 
I’ll never leave any ring able to walk if I’m licked—* 
that’s a promise I made to myself! 

The droning hum of the mob suddenly turns into 
wild yells and the stamping of thousands of feet. 
Frankie Jackson, the champ, hops over the ropes and 
walks to my corner. His hair’s all nicely brushed back, 
he’s freshly shaved, and as he bends over to look at 
the tape on my hands, the muscles in his tanned arms 
ripples like little snakes under pieces of brown satin. 
I can’t help thinkin’ what a swell-built fellow he is! 

“You big stiff!” Nate snarls at him. “You weigh 
one sixty-five if you weigh a ounce. You got nearly 
ten pounds on us!” 

Frankie grins pleasantly at Nate and shakes my 
hand warmly. 

“Good luck, Kid!” he says. “I hope you can hit!” 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT 1 ” 165 

“Same to you, Frankie,” I says, returning the hand¬ 
shake; “I hope you can take it!” 

Honest, you may find it too much to believe, but they 
ain’t no hard feelings at all. I ain’t got nothing against 
Frankie Jackson and he ain’t got a thing against me. 
Yet in a minute we’ll be tryin’ our darndest to half kill 
each other, because that happens to be our trade. 

A dozen guys which don’t mean nothing and some 
which does is introduced to the impatient crowd, and 
they all challenge the winner. Then one after the other 
they come over to Frankie and then to me, shake our 
hands, and wish us luck. Nate, having picked my 
gloves from the new set throwed into the ring, begins 
lacing ’em on my hands. Over the tick—tick—ticky 
—tick—tick—tick—of the telegraphs under my 
stool, Nate’s pouring a continual stream of instruc¬ 
tions in to me: “Make him come to you and look out 
for his left to the heart! Don’t lead with ’at right of 
yours—he don’t like it down below, so work on him 
heavy in the clinches!” All that and plenty more. 

Then he whips off my bathrobe—the blue silk one 
Judy give me—and jumps down out of the ring. With 
my gloves on the top rope, I turn around and face the 
mob which is going nuts with excitement now. The 
lights go out all over the house, except the blinding 
ones right over the ring. Then the bell and the panic 
is on! 

Still smiling pleasantly, Frankie Jackson stabs his 
long left into my face and I come back with a left and 
right to the body that draws a howl from the customers. 
Frankie backs away, the smile gone and a thoughtful 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


166 

look on his face. I crowd him to the ropes, and after 
missing two well-meant rights, I manage to sock home 
a left hook to the heart which makes him gasp and 
dive into a clinch. “How d’ye like him, Frankie?” 
hellers a elephant’s voice over the continual roar. 

Frankie don’t like me at all, and he proves it by 
slamming away with both hands to my mid-section till 
the referee breaks us. One of Frankie’s seconds yells 
for the champ to quit slugging with me and box me 
instead. Frankie nods and begins dancing around me, 
shooting that left into my face like a piston rod. I get 
sick of this and rush him, but he ain’t there, and I 
nearly sprawl on my face when I miss a right swing. 
The attendance laughs and this steams me up. I took 
six left jabs from Frankie without a return to get home 
one right hook. The punch hit Frankie on the side of 
the head and turned him completely around, making 
the guys which was just laughing at me go insane 
screaming for a knockout. 

But this baby knows too much for me! He clinches 
till his head clears, and then the smile comes back and 
so does the dance, and for the rest of the round he 
kept away, picking my punches out of the air and 
cutting me to pieces with that vicious left jab. It 
seems I just couldn’t keep my face off it! At every 
opportunity I ripped rights and lefts to the body, but 
as this guy was always going away when the wallops 
landed they did little more than sting him. I rushed 
him again just before the bell, and took a straight right 
on the jaw that didn’t do me a bit of good. 

A left I couldn’t hold back hit Frankie on the nose a 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 


167 


second after the gong—it was a pure accident, though 
some of the mob hissed. I held out my glove to Frankie 
and panted: “I didn’t hear the bell, Frankie, excuse 
me!” Frankie shakes my glove. “That’s all right,” 
he grins. “I didn’t hear it myself.” A good kid, hey? 

The next six rounds was about duplicates of the 
first. The champ had settled down to a campaign of 
simply sticking his left in my face and trying to wear 
me down with body punishment in the clinches. He 
never let me set to crash him with my right, which had 
give him plenty of respect for me after a few applica¬ 
tions. Frankie could hit, himself, and don’t think he 
couldn’t, but his trick was boxing. He had the prettiest 
left I ever see in the ring, and on his feet he was chain 
lightning! In them early rounds he went around me 
like a hoop around a barrel, keeping out of danger him¬ 
self and piling up points till he was first and I was 
nowheres. Unless I could land a lucky punch, it looked 
like Frankie would beat me from here to Hawaii! 

In the middle of the seventh round Frankie must of 
made up his mind that he had wore me down to the 
point where I was ready to take a dive, because he 
suddenly begins swapping swings with me. It took 
less than a minute to show him his mistake. Frankie 
feinted with his left, and when I fell for it he drove 
a wicked right to my stomach. I missed a right and 
left to the jaw, but landed one right square on his 
mouth, and he went back on his heels like he run into 
a fence. 

I’m on top of him in a instant, pumping both hands 
to the body till he’s forced to cover his wind, and the 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


168 

second his arms slid down I crashed a right flush on 
his jaw. The champ fell sideways, rolling over on his 
back and then struggling to one knee, while the maniacs 
outside the ropes leaps on their chairs yowling like 
wolves. The referee pushes me away and begins to 
count, but Frankie is up at “seven,” full of fight and 
rarin’ to go. Same here! We stood toe to toe in mid¬ 
ring and slugged till the crowd shook the roof. Neither 
of us heard the bell, and our handlers has got to jump 
into the ring and tear us apart! 

Round Eight was very slow, as the pace was begin¬ 
ning to tell on us both. We spent this frame mostly 
in clinching and getting our wind, and turned four 
deaf ears to the customers’ indignant bellers for us 
to fight. 

The ninth round was the busiest! Frankie come out 
at the bell with a cold determined look on his face, and 
he met my wild rush with a volley of straight lefts 
that brought the blood in a stream. I steadied myself 
and drove a hard left to Frankie’s right eye. Another 
left to the same place closed that thing for the rest of 
the fight. But I paid heavy for them two wallops! 
Coming out of a clinch, the champ throwed me off 
balance with a left hook to the head and then swung 
his right to my jaw with everything he ever had behind 
it. 

I see the punch coming and try to duck, but I’m a bit 
too late. Frankie’s glove lands fair and square on 
the side of my chin and the floor comes up and hits 
me plunk in the back. It was a terrible punch—terrible! 
The hardest wallop I ever been hit in my life! The 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 


169 


whole side of my face is numb, and when I open my 
mouth to breathe I come near screaming with the 
pain. Getting up off that mat was quite a trick, but 
I beat the count by a eyelash. I’m swaying back and 
forth on my feet in a neutral corner, when the bell 
saves me. 

Nate jumps into the ring before the sound of the 
gong has died out and helps me to my corner. He 
shoves half a lemon into my lips, and I knocked it on 
the floor with my glove. I can’t get nothing into my 
mouth—I can hardly get it open! The crowd and the 
ring and Frankie and everything else is mixed up and 
going around and around and around. Nate is examin¬ 
ing my jaw, and wow how it hurts! I dimly see Nate 
bend down and whisper, and another guy is pushed up 
through the ropes. This bird fingers my sore jaw, and 
then him and Nate talks. I can’t hear what they’re 
saying, and I’m wondering is the fight over or what’s 
the idea? Nate leans over to me. 

“We’re through, kid,” he says. “You got a frac¬ 
tured jaw!” 

“What d’ye mean I’m through?” I manage to get 
through my lips. “I got this guy licked!” 

I get off the stool and I won’t sit down. Quitting 
is one habit I never picked up. Never! 

Suppose I do quit and get away with it, as Nate’s 
raving in my ear, why, that would only encourage me 
to quit again. Nothing stirring! Nate tries to push 
me down, and we struggle around while the mob’s 
wondering what it’s all about. The reporters comes 
crowding into our corner, and then the bell rings for 


170 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


the tenth round. I remember breaking away from 
Nate, and that’s all I do remember till I’m sitting in 
my dressing room when the fight’s over. But here’s 
what “Tad,” the famous sport writer, says about that 
brawl from then on. I clipped it out of the paper: 

Gents, this was one for the book! When “Six- 
Second” Smith flopped on his stool at the end of the 
ninth frame, it looked like it was time for the customers 
to go home and argue about the fight. But this two- 
fisted fighting fool from Drew City had other plans 
for the evening. With his jaw fractured in two places, 
his body a raw red from Jackson’s terrific pounding 
in the clinches, Smith raved and struggled with his 
frantic pilot, Nate Shapiro, who wanted to throw in 
the old towel and save his boy from further mutiliation 
or the knockout that seemed as certain as sunset. With 
only half a minute before the bell, Shapiro, seeing no 
chance to keep Smith in his corner, drew on his canny 
ringcraft in an attempt to save a hopeless situation. 
He knew that if the champion discovered what he had 
done to Smith’s jaw, he’d simply crack him there 
again and it would be curtains. So he told Smith to 
drop from the next body punch, take a count of nine, 
and then get up bent over as if badly hurt. The foxy 
Shapiro hoped this would make the champ think he’s 
busted one of Smith’s ribs and cause him to devote 
all his attention to Smith’s body, leaving the bum jaw 
alone. 

An old trick, men, but it worked! Jackson slammed 
a left to Smith’s wind early in the tenth and Smith 
went down as if hit with an axe. He was up at nine, 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 


171 

s t a gg e rmg over to the ropes with both gloves pressed 
against his stomach and an agonized expression on 
his face. The champion rushed in to finish his man 
and was met with a terrific overhand right to the head 
that buckled his knees and put the house in an uproar. 
Smith then dove into a clinch, where he hung on like 
a summer cold till the referee pried ’em apart. For 
the rest of the round, Smith fought a strictly defensive 
battle, keeping his ruined jaw well covered and oc¬ 
casionally shaking the puzzled champion with a right. 

The eleventh round was just one clinch after another 
and the crowd whistled and hooted, not knowing that 
one of these boys was fighting with a broken jaw and 
the other one fighting with a slowly breaking heart, as 
he slammed this battered gamester in front of him 
with punch after punch and saw his victim still erect and 
trying! Down in the press coop, we’re getting the big 
kick. We know what the crowd don’t—that a single 
punch on that broken jaw will win the fight. The 
champ don’t know that, either. 

Then comes the twelfth and last round and one of 
the most thrilling finishes to a championship fight in 
the annals of the ring. Both boys came out with a 
rush at the bell—the champion determined to finish the 
thing, Smith, his jaw the size of a house, determined 
to die fighting. Both miss rights to the jaw and Jack- 
son then shows he has learned Smith’s secret. His 
eye is fixed on that swollen jaw and he pins Smith on 
the ropes, swinging desperately with both hands to the 
face. Drunk with punishment, Smith weaves back and 
forth in front of his executioner, stabbing out feebly 




172 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


with his left, his right cocked and set ready for the 
opening he’s hoping against hope will come. The arm- 
weary champ rips a left to the wind and then hooks 
his right to the busted jaw. The sport writers wince 
with that blow! But “Six-Second” Smith, this fighting 
maniac who lives on punishment, rebounds off the 
ropes and tries two well meant uppercuts, both of which 
miss. The champ, now sure of himself, measures the 
reeling Smith with a light left and then sinks his right 
into the heaving stomach before him. The mob is 
triple cuckoo as another right to the jaw hangs Smith 
on the ropes. Then comes the fireworks! 

Nate Shapiro, seeing his man helpless, reaches for 
the sponge and tosses it over the ropes. He’s excited 
and a bum pitcher. The sponge goes clean across the 
ring and out on the other side! But while it’s still in 
mid-air, Smith fairly pushes himself off the ropes and 
faces the champion. Jackson sets himself for the 
finisher, not seeing the sponge. Neither does the 
referee, though ten thousand voices are calling his 
attention to it! With a superhuman effort, Smith 
hooks the champ fair on the jaw with a terrific right. 
Jackson falls flat on his face, his head bouncing as it 
hit the canvas. He’s as cold as a pawn-broker’s eye 
and no mistake! Smith totters on his feet for an in¬ 
stant, looking at the insane mob with glazing eyes. 
Then he topples in a heap over the champ’s prostrate 
body. At that same minute, the bell rings, finding 
both boys on the floor at the end of the most sensa¬ 
tional fight the writer has ever seen. If you missed it, 
it’s your own fault! 


“DIEU ET MON DROIT!” 


173 


That’s all they is to that, except the newspapers 
called it a draw. After he’s been brung to life, 
Frankie Jackson comes into my dressing room while 
a doctor is setting my jaw. When Frankie finds out 
he broke it in the ninth round, and that I fooled him 
into losing the chance to knock me with a punch at 
any time after that, he’s burnt up! But he leans over 
to shake my hand. 

“You’re a rough kid,” he says, “but you can't take 
it!” 

I moved the doc’s hands away from my busted jaw. 
“And you’re a fast boy, Frankie,” I says, “but you 
can’t hit!” 


ROUND SIX 






THE CALL OF THE WILD 

“Knowledge is power!” says Francis Bacon in the 
fiscal year of 1624, and Frankie knew what it was all 
about, don’t think he didn’t! That snappy remark of 
his applies to all of us from president to plumber. 
Maybe you’ll kind of curl your lip and say that’s 
fourth-grade copy-book stuff. Well, that’s just what 
it is—but when you get right down to it, ain’t it funny 
how them old copy-book sayings seems to cover every¬ 
thing which comes up in later years? What is these 
up-to-date nifties, anyways, but the old stuff jazzed 
up? What’s new about ’em. “Strike while the iron is 
hot!” says Jack Heywood in 1565. “Do your stuff!” 
says the modern slang writer and gets credit for a 
wise crack. 

You take knowledge in the game I’ve just quit—box 
fighting. Like in anything else, the students is the 
champions. What does a scrapper have to know be¬ 
sides a straight left and a right hook? Plenty! A 
rush of brains to the head now and then is as neces¬ 
sary to a boxer as it is to a banker. For instance, I 
learned to instantly shift my attack from jaw to body 
when the other boy didn’t seem to like it down below, 
when to dive into a clinch and when not to, how to 


174 


THE CALL OF THE WILD 


175 


protect myself from a body puncher once we got to 
close quarters, how to eel out of a tight corner when 
I’m pinned on the ropes, to stay on one knee till the 
referee says “nine” if I’m floored—instead of jumping 
right up groggy and running into a knockout punch— 
and how to hit straight out from my shoulder or waist 
instead of swinging wildly like a gate. 

Say, when I think what a chump I was when Nate 
took me from behind Ajariah Stubbs’s soda fountain 
and changed my name from Gale Galen to “Six-Second 
Smith.” I can’t understand how I ever stopped any¬ 
body! All I could do then was hit and take it—not 
quite enough, no matter what the sharps tell you. 
Half the first division guys you think is clumsy from 
your ringside seat is doing fancy work in close where 
you can’t see it which would make your hair curl and 
is making the other boy’s hair curl. 

Besides, all this, I lived clean and healthy. Plenty 
sleep, good food, no smoking, and I didn’t know 
whether you spread booze on bread or rub it in your 
hair. Lots of people seems to think that all boxers is 
a lot of little or big thugs which spends the time they 
ain’t in the ring beating up innocent bystanders just 
to be nasty and drinking like famished fish. That’s 
apple sauce. Maybe the pork and beaners does all of 
that and more, but the good ones don’t and that’s a 
fact. Even in winning fights, the best of ’em takes 
not a little punishment in the course of a year and you 
can’t do that unless you’re in perfect condition—not 
to-night, or yesterday, or next week, but all the time! 

Well, I got a three months’ lay-off from the ring 


176 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


through the kind attention of Mr. Frankie Jackson. 
However, the argument I put up against the king of 
the middleweights caused a serious epidemic of bash¬ 
fulness among the other contenders in that class as 
far as a scuffle with me was concerned. When Nate 
pleads with Frankie to give us another crack at his 
crown, why, the champ just laughs and says if we 
want to fight to get a job on the Dublin police force. 
In twenty-four battles I had win twenty by knockouts 
and, like Dempsey and many another good boy which 
has too much stuff for the rest of the field, it seems I 
have fought myself out of a job. 

So, giving up all hopes of getting work in the 
middleweigh division, I tell Nate to go out shopping 
and get me a nice, fresh, light heavyweight some- 
wheres and I’ll be pleased to slap him silly for a reason¬ 
able amount of pennies. I was then twenty years old, 
stood five foot ten and three-quarters in my nude feet 
and still had trouble keeping down to 158 ringside— 
about 164 being my proper poundage—and it seems, 
like London I’m still growing. Well, Bob Fitzsimmons 
only weighed a few pounds more when he was bowling 
over some of the best heavyweights of his time and 
I got as many freckles as Fitz ever had! 

Don’t fall a victim to the idea that I spent the three 
months my ruined jaw was healing sitting in my room 
knitting doilies or nothing like that. In the contrary, 
what I done with them ninety days was to take a course 
in a New York business school. I suppose that’s a 
laugh, hey ? A prize fighter studying the mysteries of 
shorthand, advertisement writing, and salesmanship! 


THE CALL OF THE WILD 


177 


Anyways, I take up this business course and also 
enroll for the evening lectures at Columbia College, 
because I’m still incurably addicted to ambition—the 
thing which drove me from one meaningless job to 
another—a wild and undownable craving to be some¬ 
body, to get somewhere! I ain’t got no blue blood in 
me; I know that on the account it always come out 
red when I got cuffed on the nose—a mere detail in 
my business. But I had too much fighting blood in 
me to be a John Smith in Life’s phone book for 
long! 

Judy went to this business school with me, and, of 
course, that didn’t make it hard to take at all. She 
graduated from Drew City Prep a few weeks after my 
quarrel with Frankie Jackson, and as her mother has 
absolutely no connection with the Vanderbilt family or 
the equivalent, why, Judy got ready to bust into the 
business world herself so’s twelve o’clock would mean 
lunch at the boarding house and not just noon. 

Knockout Kelly, which by that time was keeping 
steady company with pretty Mary Ballinger, was al¬ 
ways riding me for studying at nights instead of step¬ 
ping out. Kayo claimed life’s too short for that 
kind of business and that education is a great handi¬ 
cap to success. Be ignorant and be a winner, says 
Kayo. 

“I don’t know if algebra is pink or green,” he tells 
me one day. ‘1 can’t spell necessity and words like 
that. For all I know, North Dakota is the capital of 
Wyoming. But—I’m clickin’ off from three to five 
thousand smackers a fight, never more than forty 


12 


1 7 8 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


minutes’ work, usually twenty. They’s millions of 
college guys workin’ two years for the same money. 
Laugh that off 1 ” 

“But, Kayo,” I says, “ten years from now you’ll be 
through in the ring, and not having no other trick, 
why, that means you’ll be through everywheres! You 
never save a nickel, so what will you do? You’ll be 
hanging around the cheap fight clubs, picking up a 
dollar here and there as a handler or a human punch¬ 
ing bag for some fellow training for a fight. But ten 
years from now the college guys which is working 
cheap at present as newly made lawyers, doctors, and 
this and that will be making more jack than you ever 
saw, Kayo, and they’ll make it right up to the time they 
die!” 

“Blah!” sneers Kayo. “Be yourself! I ain’t 
bothered about ten years from now or even one year 
from now. I never worry about yesterday or to¬ 
morrow. Yesterday’s gone and to-morrow I may be 
gone. To-day’s all that bothers me!” 

With that he walks off whistling “Sing a Song as 
You Walk Along!” 

Kayo didn’t have a care in the world—or a chance — 
while he thought like he did then! 

Well, just when I’m sitting pretty with Judy and 
everything is jake between me and the world, I get a 
terrible shock. I meet her on the stairs going to my 
room, and if she’d of looked any prettier she’d of fell 
in love with herself! The net effect on me I will 
leave in care of your imagination. 

“How’s your jaw, Gale?” she inquires tastefully. 


THE CALL OF THE WILD 


179 


“Perfect!” I says. “The last X-ray shows it’s all 
healed and they’s nothing to stop me now from going 
back into the ring and getting it broke again!” 

Judy laughs—like the tinkle of little bells. Then 
she gets a bit serious. “I hate to think of you going 
back to the prize ring, Gale,” she says. “That was 
terrible—getting your jaw broken. Why, you might be 
crippled for life at any time! When are you going 
to give up boxing? It—it would please me a lot if 
you would, Gale.” 

“Judy,” I says, “to please you I’d dive off the top 
of Washington’s Monument into a glass of water! 
You know that. But I got to say it with right hooks 
till I get a little bigger bank roll and a little better line 
on what I was born to panic the world at. I don’t 
seem to know just what my trick is yet—I’m what you 
might call experimenting. I don’t want to go back of 
the soda fountain again, that’s a cinch! So I’m just 
looking around. Boxing is keeping me alive and pay¬ 
ing for this synthetic education I’m getting, while I’m 
trying to find out the thing I do best.” 

But Judy seems to be peeved. “There are plenty 
of other things you could do besides boxing,” she 
says slowly, after a minute. She’s pulling a cute little 
handkerchief back and forth between the most beauti¬ 
ful little hands in captivity. “You have a good ap¬ 
pearance, personality, and enough intelligence to over¬ 
come the—the few rough edges left from your 
premature contact with the world. I’m sure you would 
not have the slightest difficulty in getting a good posi¬ 
tion with a future, almost anywhere. Why—” she 


i8o 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


breaks off, with a short, nervous laugh—“why, even I 
have managed to get a job!” 

Ain’t it horrible that a girl like that has got to work? 

“You did, eh?” I says, nothing but ears. “Where?” 

Judy gets as red as red itself. She kind of turns 
her face away from me and I got a sudden premoni¬ 
tion that they’s a highly unpleasant surprise coming. 
I am ioo per cent right! 

“I’m—I’m going to work in the office of Dempster 
& Co.,” she says, trying to appear careless about it 
and flopping hard. 

Well, you could of knocked me down with a wagon 
tongue! Going to work for Rags Dempster’s old man 
and Rags himself is now working in the same office, 
learning the business. Honest, for a minute I’m fit to 
be tied! 

Judy busts up the painful pause. “What’s the mat¬ 
ter, Gale, are you ill?” she says. But she well knows 
what’s the matter! 

“No,” I says, “I’m sick. Why, Judy, you can't go 
to work for Rags Dempster’s father!” 

Up goes Judy’s maddening eyebrows and you should 
of felt the chill in the air. “Oh!” she says. “I can’t? 
Why not?” 

“Because—because I—Judy, you know Rags is 
overboard over you, and him getting you that job is 
just a scheme of his to—to keep you near him!” I 
bust out. “As the matter and fact, I must give that 
dizzy stiff credit for a nifty play, but I ain’t going to 
let him get away with it! Why he’ll pester you to 
death, Judy, and-” 



THE CALL OF THE WILD 


181 


“What on earth are you talking about?” butts in 
Judy, in well fained and a bit angry surprise. “Rags 
had nothing to do with my getting a position in his 
father’s office. I applied there and was engaged by 
Mr. Young, the head clerk. As for Rags pestering me, 
well, Gale, I feel quite capable of taking care of my¬ 
self under any and all circumstances. What right have 
you to question my actions?” 

“In other words, what you do is none of my busi¬ 
ness, hey?” I says. 

“You’re not my brother, Gale,” says Judy—and the 
thermometer slides down past zero. 

“I don’t doubt that,” I says. “But I thought I was 
your boy friend. I guess women is all alike!” 

“Indeed!” says Judy, a bonfire in each eye. “You 
seem to know a lot about women, Mister Gale.” 

Mister! 

“I’m off women for life, Miss Willcox,” I says in a 
dignified way. “I am convinced that the fellow which 
understands women can also understand what a couple 
of flies says to each other when they meet on a window- 
pane! You know Rags Dempster hates the ground 
I walk on, and yet you go to work with him in his 
father’s office—like that was the only job in the United 
States of America. It looks like you are giving me a 
pushing around, Miss Willcox. O. K.—don’t be sur¬ 
prised if you read in to-night’s paper where I have left 
for—for Gehenna, or some distant country like that. 
You made me what I am to-day; I hope you’re satis¬ 
fied !” 

With these few remarks, I turn on my rubber heel 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


182 

and march haughtily down the stairs into the great out¬ 
doors. I can be as hard as a rock when I want to. 
Beautiful women has no effect at all on a fellow of my 
type, and I made up my mind I would apologize to 
Judy and get squared up with her at supper that night 
no matter what concessions I have to make, up to and 
including my right eye! 

I ain’t taken three steps up the street when low and 
behold who do I run into but Rags Dempster. I start 
to pass him by, but he furnishes me with the surprise 
of my life by stopping me and holding out his hand 
with a smile. 

“Let’s—eh—bury the hatchet, Galen,” he says, in 
that smooth, oily voice of his. “It seems rather silly 
for us to keep up this childish feud, now, doesn’t it?” 

I am busy thinking, will wonders never cease? I 
know there’s a catch in it somewheres, but still and all 
I shake his damp, flabby hand because I’m always 
ready to meet anybody halfways. I let go Rags’s hand 
and he takes out a gold cigarette case, tapping a cigar¬ 
ette on it, while his smile grows into a wide satisfied 
grin. “Besides,” he says, with a odd glance at me— 
“besides, the—eh—matter we fell out about is pretty 
well settled now.” 

I can feel the hair raising on the back of my neck! 
“What matter, Rags?” I says, looking him right in 
the eye—no small feat, as Rags’s eyes is of a wander¬ 
ing variety. 

“The matter of Judy—Miss Willcox,” he says, 
lighting his cigarette and trying to carry the thing off 
as a mere nothing. “She’s going to work in our office, 



THE CALL OF THE WILD 


183 


you know, in my department, and—well, Miss Will- 
cox and myself have known each other a long time, 
Gale, and I don’t suppose my feelings regarding her 
are much of a secret to you. I thought I’d save you 
a lot of—eh—a lot of embarrassment, by telling you 
now that I expect to marry Miss Willcox this winter!” 

I can feel I’m as pale as a quart of skim milk and I 
could of kick myself for not being able to stop my 
voice from trembling. 

“Has Judy—are you and Judy engaged?” I stammer. 

Rags’s beady, gloating eyes tells me he’s enjoying 
my misery to his full capacity. He takes plenty time 
to answer. 

“We—e— 11 , not exactly engaged” he drawls. “But 

_ yy 

“But, nothing, you big stiff!” I cut him off, and my 
voice ain’t trembling now. I’m burnt up, for a fact! 
“If Judy ain’t promised to wed you, where d’ye get that 
stuff about expecting to marry her this winter? The 
best thing you can do is to leave Judy alone, get me? 
If she ever tells me that you’re trying to take advan¬ 
tage of the miracle that she’s working for you, I’ll slap 
you for a Chinese ash can!” 

Thus endeth the first lesson. 

That night, as they say in the movies, I nailed Judy 
after supper and apologized for the way I talked to 
her earlier in the day. She changes like the wild winds, 
she does for a fact. She ain’t a bit sore, and sites the 
one which suggests sitting out in the hammock on the 
dark back porch to talk matters over. I think both 
my ears is liars when she asks me, but we go and sit 




184 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


there and after a while a idea hits me right in the 
head—a idea which to me is the snake’s hips! It’s no 
less than a way for Judy to turn down the job in the 
carpet factory office and still eat and what not. 

“Judy,” I says, “the only reason you’re going to 
work for Rags Dempster’s father is because you got 
to take a job somewheres, ain’t it? I mean it ain’t 
because you particularly like Rags or nothing like that 
—am I right?” 

“I thought we settled all that this afternoon, Gale,” 
says Judy, beginning to freeze. “I think we’re letting 
this conversation grow too personal again. I am going 
to work for Dempster & Co. because it’s right here 
in Drew City and I have been offered a very good 
salary—and why I’m allowing you to catechize me like 
this, I don’t know!” 

“It’s a mystery to me too,” I says pleasantly. 
“However, what I’m getting at is this, Judy. If you 
had a chance to take another job in Drew City at more 
wages, would you take it instead ?” 

“Rather!” smiles Judy. 

“Then that Dempster & Co. job is out!” I says 
joyfully. “Judy, I now hereby offer you the position 
of my secretary at the salary of fifty bucks a week to 
commence, with a chance of advancement. No ex¬ 
perience is necessary and-” 

But Judy has bust out laughing. “Oh, you funny 
boy!” she says, looking at me through dancing eyes. 
Then she gazes out into the night. “I wonder what 
I’ll eventually do with you?” she remarks softly to 
the big oak opposite the house. 



THE CALL OF THE WILD 


i 85 


Now that’s a funny crack, ain’t it? What will she 
do with me? I’m trying to figure that one out, when 
she lays her beautiful hand on mine, which is only 
beautiful in a four-ounce glove. 

“That’s a splendid offer, Gale,” she says, “and I’d 
be tempted to snap it up, only I know why you’ve made 
it to me. You don’t need a secretary yet, though I 
know the day will come when you’ll have half a dozen 
secretaries in your own big office. I often visualize 
you sitting at your desk, directing the destiny of some 
tremendous business, Gale—don’t you yourself?” 

“I don’t know, Judy,” I says. “I’d rather direct 
your dest—eh——” 

I’m getting in over my head, so I kind of trailed off! 

“Yes, Gale?” says Judy, all attention. 

But I’m afraid to gamble with her! I’ll tell you why. 
If I ever lost Judy’s friendship, I’d of cooked myself, 
as sure as you can get good and moist by falling into 
the ocean. I once read in a book about a couple like me 
and Judy which was the best of pals till the fellow 
hauls off one day and asks the girl to wed him. This 
spilled the beans, because the girl looks sad and shakes 
her head, saying, to the best of my knowledge: “Oh, 
Jack, how could you! Our lovely friendship is now 
broke up—we can never be the same again since you 
went to work and asked me that! Why couldn’t we 
of remained just chums?” And the guy gets the air. 
So I held my tongue and played safe, turning the con¬ 
versation to Rags. 

“It looks to me, Judy,” I says, “as if you’re kidding 
me about what you really think of Rags Dempster. 



186 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


You turn down my offer of a job and take his and the 
best / can get is a laugh! D’ye know he’s going around 
telling people he expects to marry you this winter?” 

Judy’s face is like fire. “Where did you hear that 
tidbit?” she asks. 

“Rags told me himself,” I says. “I told him if he 
bothered you when you went to work in his office, I’d 
knock him dead.” 

Judy jumps up out of her hammock. If she ain’t 
mad, then she’s a wonderful actoress. “I wish you 
and Rags would stop discussing me as though I were a 
—a town character!” she says, ninety below zero. 
“And I am not in need of a protector. You’ve made 
it very embarrassing for me by threatening Rags, and 
I’d be glad if you’d wait until I ask you before deliver¬ 
ing ultimatums for me. I haven’t the slightest inten¬ 
tion of marrying Rags, or—or anyone, ever!” 

And she flounces into the house. 

If I got a dollar for every time I got in wrong, I’d 
have a Rockefeller gnashing his teeth inside of a given 
year! 

Well, for the next few days me and Judy don’t ex¬ 
change half a dozen words, and she even takes to eat¬ 
ing her meals either before or after me, so’s we don’t 
meet at the table. This kind of treatment steams me 
up to the point where I have almost decided to move 
from Mrs. Willcox’s boarding house to a New York 
hotel, when Nate busts into my room one day and 
hollers he has finally signed me for a fight. The victim’s 
name in round numbers is “Wild Bill” Killoran, which 
has broke down and confessed to being light heavy- 


THE CALL OF THE WILD 


187 


weight champion of the Pacific Coast. The quarrel is 
to be staged at the Eureka A. C. in New York, fifteen 
frames to a decision. I am to get five thousand bucks 
even—win, lose, draw, or what have you. 

I will have to spot Wild Bill at least ten pounds, and 
from all accounts he’s a sweet puncher and nobody’s 
fool. Likewise, this will be my first battle in three 
months, so I start in training at once for William. 
Spence Brock is then a inmate of Princeton and his 
millionaire dad is still taking a interest in me. Both 
of ’em goes to nearly all my fights, and I have been 
up to the emperor’s palace they call their home half a 
dozen times, talking over my future with Mr. Brock. 
I always left him with a little more stuff and a little 
more ambition than I had when I went up to see him. 
He is certainly one wonderful man and a billion ain’t 
a dime too much for him! 

Well, I am talking to Mr. Brock one day a little 
while after Judy has apparently broke off diplomatic 
relations with me, and during the course of the conver¬ 
sation I tell him I think I will leave Drew City flat on 
its back, as these small burgs cramps my style. An¬ 
other thing, now that the sweetest girl in all the world 
has give me the air, why, I don’t think they’s enough 
opportunities in a trap like Drew City for a fellow of 
my speed. The way I checked up then, I felt it wasn’t 
going to be no great length of time before I retired 
from the ring and tried my luck in some game which 
is less wearing on the features. I had $5,475 in the 
First National Bank, a $1,800 chumpy roadster, and 
I was getting around five thousand fish every time I 



FIGHTING BLOOD 


188 

crawled through the ropes. So I figure I belonged in 
a hick burg like Drew City the same way a submarine 
belongs to a bathtub. 

But, to my great surprise, Mr. Brock is against me 
leaving Drew City to take my chances in New York. 
He tells me the rumor that opportunity knocks once 
on every man’s door is a true one and a ambitious boy 
don’t have to rush off to the city to make his fortune. 
He himself got his start in a small town, Irontown, 
Pa., where he’s«then president of the big locomotive 
works, after he’d starved trying to knock New York 
for a goal. 

“The fallacy that success is to be found only in the 
big cities has sent many a promising young man home 
from them to his native village, beaten and discour¬ 
aged,” he says, chewing on a cigar which costs some 
heavy money but which for some reason he never 
lights. 

“Some of them have then gone ahead to fame and 
fortune, proving, of course, that success is never a mat¬ 
ter of environment, but of the man! Knut Hamsun, 
who a couple of years ago won the fifty-thousand- 
dollar Nobel Prize in literature, could rise no higher 
than a street-car conductor in Chicago. Lipton drove 
a horse car in New Orleans, Clemenceau started as a 
teacher in New York, Masefield was a bartender there. 
Yet all those men, giving up the struggle in the big 
cities, returned to their home towns and made their 
names known to the far corners of the earth! You 
can do the same, Galen. Never mind New York—the 
cities have broken far more men than they’ve ever 


THE CALL OF THE WILD 


189 


made! Look about you here, where you have friends 
and an open, clean record of progress under the most 
adverse conditions. There’s less competition in Drew 
City and when you discover your ‘trick,’ as you call it, 
you will find an interested and sympathetic audience. 
I, for one, am always ready to give you my attention 
and help!” 

Well, after that I just chased New York right out 
of my mind, and I bet you would of too. With a man 
like that in my corner I’d be a dumbell indeed to leave 
Drew City without making a two-handed attempt to 
put myself over in it, now wouldn’t I? 

Well, the day I am to swap wallops with Wild Bill 
Killoran finally rolls around as days will and we break 
camp at noon, so’s to be ready to leave Drew City on 
85, the 4.06 p. m. local. As usual, Mr. Brock has a 
ringside box and he takes Spence and a party of 
friends from Wall Street with him, so I’m anxious to 
win this battle in jig time, as whenever I do, Mr. 
Brock beams around at his friends and acts like he had 
win the fight himself. 

I’m all packed and ready to leave my room, when 
they comes a familiar knock on the door—a knock 
which makes me drop my suit-case and gets me ting¬ 
ling all over. I flang the door wide open and there’s 
Judy, smiling at me like she did the first time I ever 
seen her nearly three years before, standing in the same 
spot. It’s a funny thing, but although I see Judy nearly 
every day of my life I just can’t get used to her pulse- 
quickening beauty and take her as a matter of course. 
Every time she comes near me I get a thrill, I do for 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


190 

a fact! So I just stand there and gape at her like a 
boob, and I guess my face must of been a show win¬ 
dow for my feelings, because she gets a very becoming 
shade of red. 

“I—I just wanted to wish you luck, Gale,” she says. 
‘‘You will be careful of your jaw, won’t you? I—I’d 
rather have you lose than get hurt!” 

“Thanks, Judy,” I says. “It’s sure fine of you to 
give me a—eh—to care what happens to me, and you 
coming up to say good-bye was all I needed to put me 
in perfect condition for this scuffle. I ain’t going to 
lose, and I ain’t going to get hurt either. I’ll just go 
in there thinking of you and I’ll put this Killoran out 
for so long that when he comes to his shoes won’t fit 
him!” 

Judy laughs, and then she gives me a look which 
starts my heart trying the difficult feat of leaping right 
out through my ribs. It looks like anything might 
happen, when this big stiff Nate Shapiro bawls up the 
stairs for me to snap into it or I’ll miss the train. 
What do I care about missing a train, when they’s a 
chance of me getting in right with Judy again? Say— 
I’d miss a whole railroad for one smile from this panic! 

Well, like it says in the old pome, “ ’Twas a balmy 
summer’s evening and a goodly crowd was there” 
when I crawl through the ropes at the Eureka A. C. 
with the intentions of knocking Mr. Wild Bill Killoran 
for a row of shanties. Kayo Kelly and “Two-Punch” 
Jackson is looking after me and I get a pretty fair 
hand from the mob as I sit down on my stool. I see 
Spence and his father in their box and we exchange 



THE CALL OF THE WILD 


191 

hand waves and a little farther back I pick out Rags 
Dempster with some of his cronies. In this case stony 
stares is exchanged. Wild Bill Killoran is already in 
the ring, and from where I sit he looks like a tough 
egg, he does for a fact! The weights is announced as 
1623^ for me and 174 for my charming adversus. 
This draws some moans from the crowd, but a twelve- 
pound handicap means nothing in my young life: I 
figure I’ll soon cut Wild Bill down to my size, and 
after that, a little lower. 

Wild Bill starts right out after my goat when we 
get called to the middle of the ring for instructions. 
“Do I walk to my corner and wait for the count every 
time I knock this guy down?” he says to the referee. 

“Be yourself, you big boloney!” I snarled. “The 
only thing you ever knocked down in your life is 
nickels when you was a street-car conductor. You’ll 
go out of here to-night on a shutter !” 

“Shut up!” says the referee to both of us. “Fight 
with your hands!” 

Then the fun began. 

Wild Bill shows where he got his name by charging 
out of his corner like a wounded lion at the bell. He 
was short with a terrific right swing, and when I duck 
under his left it whizzed by the panic-stricken referee’s 
ear, only missing him by a scant inch and dumb luck! 
The crowd howls with joy. I leaped in with a hard 
left to the head and shot a stiffer right to the heart 
before Wild Bill knew what it was all about. He 
looked surprised and begin backing to the ropes, with 
me following, cautiously. “C’mon, fight!” I grin at 


192 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


him, and he answers with a murderous right hook to 
the body which shook me from head to toe and satisfied 
me that he was one sweet socker and not no bonbon 
eater by no means! I dove into a clinch, and, when 
the referee broke us, Nate yells for me to box and not 
slug. I nod my head and begin to left-hand Wild 
Bill all over the ring. Killoran couldn’t cope with me 
at this, and in a minute he’s tincanning from pillar to 
post, with me following him up and cutting him to 
ribbons. Following Nate’s instructions, I clinched 
every time Wild Bill tried to mix matters up, and the 
bell found us in mid ring, with me pecking away at 
Wild Bill’s crimson profile and Wild Bill punching holes 
in the air. I run to my corner with a broad smile 
on my face, a smile I had worn since the opening 
bell. 

But the hard-boiled mob which had give up their 
jack to see assault and battery give me the royal rasp¬ 
berry for boxing Killoran instead of standing toe to 
toe and slugging with him. During the rest, some of 
’em howled for me to take a chance, and I remarked to 
Nate that I’m going out in the second frame and see 
who can hit the hardest, me or Wild Bill. 

“You’ll do nothin’ of the kind!” snaps Nate, spong¬ 
ing me off. “You do what I tell you, never mind the 
crowd— we're fightin’ this baby, not them cheap 
squawkers out there! Keep makin’ him miss and he’ll 
soon tire. Box him. And lookit, take ’at grin off 
your pan! It don’t mean nothin’, and it’ll get you a 
razzin’ when this guy shakes you up and you forget to 
smile. They’ll holler: ‘Where’s ’at smile now, Smith ?’ 


THE CALL OF THE WILD 


193 


and it’ll rattle you. You do the fightin’ and let me do 
the laughin’, get me?” 

Killoran come out fast for the second round, but I 
kept beating him to the punch, stabbing him in the face 
with my left time after time and then crossing my 
right to wherever I see a opening. About a minute 
after the bell, I socked Killoran flush on the jaw with 
a short inside right and his knees buckled under him. 4 ' 
The customers shriek for me to knock him for a row 
of silos, but he’s hanging on to me with both arms like 
he’s drowning. It took the referee quite a spell to tear 
Wild Bill away from me, and when he did let go his 
head come up and bumped mine, opening up a old cut 
over my right eye. 

The referee warns him and the crowd hisses, but 
none of that stops the blood from that cut from blind¬ 
ing me on that side of my face. This butting business 
gets me red-headed and I tied into Killoran with every¬ 
thing I had in stock! I shot my left to his bobbing 
head five times without a return and then took a glanc¬ 
ing right to the jaw to bury my own right in his 
stomach. Wild Bill stumbled away and crashed to 
the mat, face down. When they drop from a body 
punch they’re hurt, and that’s a fact! Remember that 
the next box fight you see. He managed to beat the 
count and was braced against the ropes, set for a trip 
to dreamland, when the bell rang. 

The third round was the last and the best one of the 
fight, from the crowd’s angle. Wild Bill was sent out 
to risk everything on landing a knockout punch, and I 
went in with the objects of stopping him with a couple 


13 


194 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


of blows. The result was just a little more action, with 
less principals, than they was at the battle of Santiago! 
I closed Killoran’s left eye with the first wallop, but 
took a vicious right to the mouth in return which 
loosened a couple of teeth and drew blood. Devoting 
my attention to Wild Bill’s mid-section, I tossed in a 
right and left which made Bill say “How do you do?” 
and a right uppercut knocked him a long ways from 
normalcy. The average boy would of been through 
for the evening by this time, but Wild Bill was tougher 
than a life sentence in solitary confinement! He just 
shook his head and bored in, ripping both hands to my 
wind and pretty soon I’m as red between the neck and 
belt as if somebody had hit me with a bottle of catsup 
and it broke. 

I shift my attack and begin taking shots at Killoran’s 
jaw with my right. One of ’em got through his clums}^ 
defense and he tottered back against the ropes, plainly 
in distress. He looks around to his corner for advice, 
and I didn’t clout him when his head was turned, 
though Nate and the mob yelled for me to paste him 
and razzed me most heartily when I didn’t. We boxed 
carefully for a few seconds, when suddenly Killoran 
whips over a long left which lands a good two inches 
below my belt. The crowd roars when I stagger back, 
biting my lips with the pain and pressing both gloves 
over the place where that foul punch landed. Oh, I 
was hurt bad and no mistake! I looked at the referee, 
and he hesitates a minute while the place is in a uproar 
and then he taps Wild Bill on the shoulder, warning 


THE CALL OF THE WILD 


195 

him. A lot of good that done me and the babies which 
had bet on me! 

I am in so much pain and so crazy mad that I can’t 
see straight, but I rushed at Wild Bill with what might 
be called evil thoughts in my brain. I missed two 
rights, but connected with a left hook to the heart that 
spun Killoran around like a top. Seeing the shape I’m 
in. Wild Bill gets a new lease on life and stung me with 
two sizzling rights to the chin and a left uppercut that 
nearly tore my head off. Well, I can’t really untrack 
myself till I’m hurt, as Mr. Killoran soon found out! 
I rushed him to the ropes and took all the fight out 
of him with a torrid right swing to the wind. He 
starts to back pedal and I dropped him to his knees 
with a one-two punch to the jaw. He waited for 
“nine” and then he got up, groggy. All I can hear 
around me is: “Knock him out, Smith! Knock the 
big stiff out!” and “Go on, kid, take him!” 

I set myself to oblige the cash customers, when 
Killoran deliberately crashes his right below my belt 
again. This time the foul did the business! I got 
dizzy and awful sick at my stomach and kind of slid 
slowly to the floor, doubled over in a knot like a pret¬ 
zel. The crowd has went crazy and lots of ’em are 
rushing for the ring, but they don’t bother me because 
the pain has drove me crazier than they are! The next 
thing the referee is chasing Killoran to his corner and 
telling the maniacs out in front that I have win the 
fight on a foul. Then Nate and Kayo Kelly is bend¬ 
ing down over me and somebody says: “Let the doctor 
pass through here, you guys!” 


196 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


At this critical point I passed out for the time 
being. 

When I come to I am in the dressing room with my 
handlers busy working over me. Nate is standing be¬ 
side me with a serious look on his face. 

“What did; I do—get knocked?” I says, kind of 
dazed. 

Nate grins and commences to tell me what happened, 
and though I’m still kind of goofy I gradually remem¬ 
ber Killoran fouling me. The pain, which is coming 
back, is a great aid to my memory. Well, I am good 
and mad and don’t think I ain’t. I don’t want to win 
no fights like that—I want to knock ’em dead or get 
knocked dead—no draws or referee’s decisions, or 
newspaper verdicts means anything to me! Then who 
walks into the dressing room but Mr. Wild Bill 
Killoran, some sport writers, Rags Dempster, and 
Spence Brock. 

“What’s the idea?” snorts Nate, running to the door. 
“We ain’t giving no party here!” 

“Just wanted to see how badly your boy was hurt, 
that’s all Nate,” says one of the newspaper guys. 

“Hurt?” sneers Wild Bill, shoving his ugly face up 
to me. “Where would he get hurt? He didn’t like it, 
that what’s the matter with him! He got away with 
murder, claimin’ that foul. The punch that put him 
down landed on that glass jaw of his!” 

“That’s correct, gentlemen,” butts in Rags Dempster 
to the reporters. “I saw the blow land!” 

“You’re a liar!” hollers Nate. “As for you, you big 
yellah hound—” he begins, turning to Wild Bill. 


THE CALL OF THE WILD 


197 

‘Til knock you stiff, too, if you open your mouth to 
me!” butts in Killoran, swinging around on Nate. 

Well I’m boiling over, so I get up. “You won’t 
knock nothing stiff!” I says to Wild Bill. “I had you 
steadied for a knockout when you deliberately fouled 
me, not once, but twice. I don’t like to win fights that 
way. I like to win ’em this way!” 

With that, I shot out my left and Killoran’s head 
snapped back. The bunch yells and begins milling 
around us and Wild Bill caught me on the ear with his 
ungloved right first. But I knew where he couldn’t 
take it, so I ripped both hands to his wind. He bent 
over and I measured him with another left which 
straightened him up and then I crashed a terrible right 
to his chin. He floundered backward into the reporter 
for the “News,” and when the reporter stepped quickly 
away, Wild Bill slid to the floor, dead to the world. 
So I got my knockout after all! 

Nate found out later that Rags had dropped a thou¬ 
sand bucks on the fight, betting Wild Bill would stop 
me before the limit. I certainly was sorry to hear that. 
I wish he had dropped a million! 

On the way back to Drew City, I get to thinking 
again about Judy going to work for Rags Dempster’s 
old man. They must be some way to prevent that from 
coming to pass, I keep telling myself, and then all of a 
sudden I sit up straight in my seat. I got a idea again! 
Nate’s stable was then composed of half a dozen leather 
pushers, including me, and when I wasn’t fighting or 
studying I was doping out different ways of getting 
publicity for all of us. In fact, I cooked up several 


198 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


pieces which Nate managed to get on the sporting 
pages, making him think I was the turtle’s wings as 
a press agent. There was also a whole lot of corre¬ 
spondence connected with matching us up for fights 
and Nate had been taking all his letters over to the 
Commercial House and having Mary Ballinger write 
’em. Well, my idea was to have Nate open up a regu¬ 
lar office in Drew City like all the big-time fight mana¬ 
gers does in New York, put in a filing system, tele¬ 
phone, desks, and all this sort of thing and hire a girl, 
to viz., Judy, to take charge, answer mail and the etc. 

At first Nate says not so good, because he loves to 
keep down expenses, but after a while when I says I’ll 
split Judy’s salary with him, why, he gives in. 

I don’t say nothing at all to Judy till a week later, 
when we got our office in the First National Bank 
Building all set. Then I drive her over to see it. Well, 
she’s just delighted, that’s all, and right there’s where 
I butt in with my offer of a job as stenographer extra¬ 
ordinary and secretary plenipotentiary. Judy begins 
to hedge and says am I sure we are doing enough 
business for all this outlay, and I says wait till she sees 
the mail we get every day and she’ll think we’re run¬ 
ning a puzzle contest. Finally, after plenty argument, 
she agrees to come over with us, with the proviso that 
if they ain’t enough work to give us a excuse to pay 
her fifty a week, she’ll leave us flat. I ask her can I 
go with her to see Rags Dempster’s face when she 
quits his office and tells him where she’s going to work 
and she says absolutely no, but she laughs. 

Well, the very first day Judy’s on the job I get a 


THE CALL OF THE WILD 


199 


tough break. She’s waiting for the sacks of mail to 
come in so’s she can answer it and earn her jack and 
all the letter man brings us is a bill for the office furni¬ 
ture. She shakes her head and starts for her hat, and 
the thought that she’s going to quit after I have went 
to all this trouble to keep her under my wing nearly 
floors me. But I am a idea-getting fool! We’re alone 
in the office and I called across the room to her: 

“Just a moment, Miss Willcox! You was supposed 
to take dictation and the like here, was you not?” 

She looks surprised at the tone of my voice and the 
“Miss Willcox,” but she nods her head yes. 

“O. K.,” I says, very stern. “Kindly be so kind as 
to sit down at that typewriter. I got a important letter 
to get off and this has all the earmarks of a busy morn¬ 
ing!” 

With a kind of a puzzled look at me, Judy takes off 
her hat, sits down at the typewriter, takes up a pad 
and pencil and stares at me. 

“All right,” she says. “I’m ready!” 

I cleared my throat. “Take this letter,” I says. 
“To Whom It May Concern—Mr. Gale Galen, nee 
Six-Second Smith, future light heavyweight champion 
of the world and even more future business king, 
would like to announce that he is—is—eh—wildly in 
love with—with—a ‘certain party by the name of—of 
—eh—just leave that space blank!” 

“But—but I’ve already filled it in!” says Judy—and 
then she gets as red as a four-alarm fire and would 
of tore the paper up, but I snatched it out of her hand. 

I’m spreading it out on the desk, when Judy’s voice 


200 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


stops me. “‘Gale,” she says, “do you want me to stay 
here?” 

‘Til say so!” Isays. 

“Then tear that paper up without reading it— in¬ 
stantly!” 

I had it tore before the last word left her beautiful 
mouth. Say, ain’t girls funny? Why did she write in 
her name if she didn’t want me to see it? While she 
was in the act of doing it, I seen her write down 
“Judy Willcox” on her pad, right after “I am wildly 
in love with a certain party by the name of—” I didn’t 
study shorthand at that business school for nothing, or 
write Judy’s name in that language eight hundred 
times without knowing what the shorthand marks is 
for it, when we made ’em up ourselves! 







ROUND SEVEN 

THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 

Pretty soon I will have a education which don’t have 
to take it’s hat off to nobody, yet the nearest I ever been 
to college was when I slap Kid Michaels stiff in 
Cambridge, Mass., and I’m forced to pass Harvard on 
the ways to the fight club. I am plying myself with 
knowledge of this and that by the kind assistance of 
books, for the reasons that I would like to pass a fight 
club some day on the ways to Harvard. 

Having Judy in our office where I could see her all 
day long was like putting a ham bone just out of reach 
of a chained collie. But I figured I’d bust that chain 
with education, ambition, and a six-figure bank roll. 

I am plowing through a serial the other night called 
“Fortunate,” by Mr. Ludwig Tieck, a poet which did 
his stuff when you and I were young, Maggie, and he 
says: “To a sensible man, there is no such thing as 
chance!” 

Ludwig said a mouthful. Personally, I’m satisfied 
that luck and chance is snares and delusions, as 
whosthis says. The fellow which has reached the top 
of the heap and is called a lucky stiff by the failures 
is simply lucky in having the determination to work 
hard, the ability to laugh off discouragement, and the 


201 


202 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


pep to keep the rust off his ambition. Having gave 
luck a thorough tryout, I am in the position to tell you 
something about it. Depending on luck cost me—but 
I might as well spill the whole business and be done 
with it! 

A few days after I stop Larry Forbes—a tough egg 
—in five rounds at Philadelphia, Nate gets a cable from 
Mr. Haskins, the big English promoter, offering us 
three fights at the National Sporting Club, London, 
Eng., where the Prince of Wales must be getting sick 
and tired of feeling English heavies: “Better luck next 
time!” Well, naturally enough, this little incident gets 
me all excited. I had never been farther away from 
the United States than Coney Island, being too young 
at the time the draft was all the rage, and here’s what 
has all the earmarks of a chance to tour Europe. So I 
hop in my nifty chumpy roadster and go to our office 
to talk this European expedition over with Judy. 

She’s sitting at her desk giving our brand-new 
typewriter a cuffing and she looks sweeter to me than 
a glass bowl shortage would look to a goldfish. 

“Good morning, Judy,” I says, putting down with 
the greatest of difficulty a wild impulse to kiss her. 
“Speaking of anchovies. I’m going to London!” 

The clicking keys stops like magic. Judy looks up 
at me and they’s plenty surprise inlaid in her navy-blue 
eyes as she lays down her notes. 

“Of course, you’re joking,” she says. 

“Of course, I ain't!” I grins, sitting on the side of 
her desk. “Nate just got a flash from King George’s 
home town offering us thirty-five thousand dollars and 


THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 


203 

traveling expenses for three scuffles with three set-ups 
over there. Ain’t we got fun?” 

I think she’ll be tickled silly, but, in the contrary, she 
seems exceedingly peeved. 

“Gale, how much of your ring earnings have you 
saved?” she asks, like it’s a serious matter. 

Well, that’s a horse of a different tint. I reach in 
the inside pocket of my coat and bring forth my bank 
book—one of the most interesting novels I have yet 
run across in my studies. 

“I only got twenty thousand, eighty-six dollars and 
nineteen cents,” I says. “Nothing at all, Judy.” 

“Nothing at allf” she says, sitting up straight. 
“Why, that’s a whole lot of money! When you were 
a soda clerk for Ajariah Stubbs at twelve dollars a 
week, Gale, you would have thought it wealth beyond 

your wildest dreams. Now, it’s nothing at all! Why 
_ 

“But listen, Judy,” I interrupt, “I’m going to turn in 
this dinkey little tin-can-on-a-roller-skate I got and get 
a Pelham twin-six Sedan. That’s going to hit me for 
about twelve thousand berries. But wait till you see 
it, Judy; I bet you’ll get as big a kick out of riding 
in it as I will. Why, the front seat alone on one of 
these boats would hold the United States Senate with¬ 
out no trouble at all!” 

“Indeed!” says Judy, kind of cold. “Well, I’ll never 
ride in it, that’s certain!” 

“What have I done now, Judy?” I says, in astonish¬ 
ment. “Has anybody put in a rap for me, or what is 
the reasons you won’t ride in my sedan?” 



204 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


“Because,” says Judy firmly, “I refuse to be a party 
to your spending any such absurd sum as twelve 
thousand dollars for an automobile—or—or anything! 
Why, that’s all a millionaire would spend for a car. 
You’ve only just bought the one you have now. What’s 
the matter with it?” 

I am commencing to feel the bit red in the face. 
“Well—I—they ain’t enough class to it, Judy,” I says. 
“I am getting in the public’s eye more and more every 
day now and a fellow in my position has got to put on 
a little dog!” 

I see Judy’s thrilling lips quivering and then a smile, 
which makes my blood tingle and would yours too, 
opens ’em wide. She lays her hand on my arm and I 
tremble, like I always do when she touches me. 

“Oh, Gale—you foolish boy!” she says softly. 
“When are you going to grow up? So you think 
yourself famous, because you’ve had some little suc¬ 
cess as a prize fighter ? That sort of recognition doesn’t 
mean anything, Gale. Don’t you know there is a vast 
difference between fame and notoriety? Where are 
the high ideals and the stanch ambition that took you 
from behind a soda fountain ? Are you going to disap¬ 
point me and let this passing prosperity blind you to 
the big things that still lie before you? Give up prize 
fighting now —as you promised yourself you would 
when you had made enough money to live on while 
looking about for your life work. You have twenty 
thousand dollars—why, there are twenty thousand 
things you can do! A small business of some kind, 
perhaps, or—but that will work itself out, if-” 



THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 


205 


“Judy, twenty thousand’s nothing startling these 
days, honest it ain’t!” I butt in. “But with the thirty- 
five grand I’ll get from these fights in London I’ll have 
a real bank roll and then I’ll hang my gloves on the 
wall for good, no fooling, Judy! Why, think how 
that trip across will broaden my mind and—eh—and 
all that business.” 

“You’re evading the issue, Gale,” says Judy, shaking 
her pretty head. “You don’t want to give up boxing! 
You—you’re actually proud of your profession. I can 
read that in everything you say and do! You do like 
to fight, don’t you?” 

With that she gets up from the desk and walks over 
to the window, looking out on Drew City and tapping 
her lead pencil on the pane. I get up, too, and stand 
beside her. 

“Judy,” I says, picking my words carefully, because 
I don’t want to get in wrong with this eye-widener by 
no means—“Judy, I do get a kick out of box fighting, 
but not in the way you think. Of course they’s a thrill 
in a hard-won battle, the roar of the mob, the plunk of 
your glove against body or jaw, and the fact that box¬ 
ing is a man-to-man affair, not team against team, like 
baseball, football, basketball, and them other sports. 
That’s the main thing which makes prize fighting so 
popular—it’s a two-man struggle, and while you watch 
it you can put yourself in the place of either! You 
don’t get that kind of a angle in watching two teams. 
But the big thrill I get out of being a leather pusher 
is the fact that it’s the only thing to date at which I 
have meant something. Judy, I’m getting somewheres 


206 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


as a boxer, I’m a success at it, what I mean—and you 
can’t laugh that off!” 

“Any husky longshoreman could be the same!” she 
sniffs. 

“Don’t you believe it, Judy. There’s thousands of 
huskies in the game, but there’s only eight champions!” 
I tell her. 

“Oh, I don’t want to argue with you, Gale,” says 
Judy, kind of impatient. “If you’ve made up your 
mind to remain a prize fighter, I don’t suppose anything 
I might say would change you.” 

“But I ain't made up my mind to remain a prize 
fighter,” I says. “Not by a long shot! I have simply 
made up my mind to stay in this game till I’m a champ. 
At everything else I’ve tried my hand at since I been 
eight years old I been nothing more than a number on 
a pay roll, holding a meaningless job. I didn’t amount 
to nothing, Judy, and I’d just as soon be dead as be 
that way! My motto is: ‘Stand out from the mob at 
— anything! Do your stuff! Don’t just live and die 
like a blade of grass—stepped on by everything from 
laborers to millionaires, ugly by itself, useless except 
in mass formation and only useful then as fodder!’ 
They’s millions of fellows like that, Judy, but I ain't 
one of 'em!'' 

“Those are admirable precepts,” says Judy, coming 
back to her desk again. “But what has that to do with 
your remaining a boxer?” 

“Just this,” I says. “Like I told you, Judy, before 
I begin scrapping, I was George W. Nothing. Well, 
it’s different now! Why, even in Europe they’ve heard 


THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 


207 


of me—look at that offer from London. I got a follow¬ 
ing, I get big money for my services, and the sport 
writers rate me among the leading fighters in the 
game. If I was to step down before Lve win the light 
heavyweight championship of the world, I’d feel I 
hadn’t played my hand out. It would slow me up in 
anything I tried after leaving the ring, Judy, it would 
for a fact! This is the first chance I’ve had to get to 
the top in anything. Let me go through with it and 
if I do win the title I’ll quit the ring and tackle some 
other game with a bigger future. Having been a champ 
at one trade will help me a hundred per cent to be a 
champ at another!” 

“Well, maybe you’re right, Gale,” says Judy after 
a minute, which I use in thinking how long will I have 
to wait and what will I have to do to get her. “But 
I don’t quite agree with the reasoning that makes your 
fighting a necessity to your future success. However, 
good luck to you, and I’ll continue to help you in any 
way I can. What books have you been reading lately?” 

Glad to change the subject, I tell her, and after trying 
me out on what I’ve already waded through she lays 
out my reading course for the coming week. Before 
I leave, I tell her the $12,000 Pelham sedan is out, as 
far as I am concerned. Judy was right, there’s no two 
ways about it. What a sapolio I’d of been to pay that 
much jack for a car which I needed the same way I 
needed another forehead. Like she said, the money was 
commencing to go to my head—where I suppose there 
was the most room! 

While Nate was trying to make up our minds about 


208 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


this trip to London, we got a letter from Denver 
Nolan, the biggest fight promoter in captivity, which 
had just built a new arena in New York. Nolan 
wants to put me on with Jimmy Hanley, light heavy¬ 
weight champion of America, for his opening attrac¬ 
tion, figuring that bout will jam his club to the doors. 
The English flash, Gunner Slade, light heavyweight 
champion of the world, had agreed to risk his title in 
a quarrel with the winner. As there’s sure to be plenty 
pennies in it for us, why, Nolan’s proposition puts off 
the ocean voyage. This tickles Judy silly and I didn’t 
feel near as disappointed that I ain’t going across as 
I thought I’d be. I don’t care what they got in Europe, 
they ain’t got no Judy Willcox and what else is they? 

For the next week, running back and forth to New 
York fixing things up with Denver Nolan keeps Nate 
busy. I’m busy too—studying my books, doping out 
schemes which will get me and Nate’s other scrappers 
free publicity on the sporting pages, and working out 
lightly a couple of hours the day with Knockout Kelly 
and Two-Punch Jackson. 

Well, when I stepped in and gummed up Rags Demp¬ 
ster’s plans by hiring Judy for our office, Rags goes 
up in flames and blows his father’s office to enter 
Princeton, with all the rest of the rich bunch from 
the swell prep school. A few weeks later he busts into 
the limelight by graduating from college while still a 
freshman, no small feat. His folks is in Europe and 
Rags had been stepping high, wide, and handsome since 
they left, bounding around with a mob of fast guys 
like himself, which if they had a cent apiece would 


THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 


209 


have much more money than brains. They was having 
a wild party in a roadhouse just outside of Drew City 
one night, with bootleg flowing like Niagara Falls, 
when along comes the revenue babies. They pinched 
the roadhouse, taking everybody’s name, and on the 
mad dash home, Rags, which must have been lit up 
like a Christmas tree, crashes into a fence with his car. 
One of the girls gets a broken arm and one of the 
fellows gets so badly bunged up he’s got to be carted 
to the hospital. Well, it all got in the papers on the 
account of everybody in the party coming from big 
families and it was the town scandal for many’s the 
day. The minute it gets to teacher’s ears at Prince¬ 
ton, why, Princeton gives Rags and his playmates the 
air. In a few days Rags is back in his father’s office 
again and he seems to be proud of all the stuff which 
was in the papers about him. But they’s plenty people 
says when they pass him on the street, sneering and 
stuck up as usual: “Wait till his father comes back 
from Europe and it’ll be different!” 

I can’t figure this fellow Dempster, and that’s a fact. 
Imagine doing anything to risk a college education! 
I would of parted with a leg for the opportunities this 
dizzy dumbell tossed airily away. A rich father, a 
bright future, swell friends, college, autos— everything. 
All that I’ve been breaking my neck to get ever since 
I been old enough to know what it’s all about, this bird 
has presented to him in the cradle, and he let it slide! 

Well, Nate finally gets Denver Nolan to talk turkey 
with the regards to my salary for a quarrel with Jimmy 
Hanley, and the battle is carded for the middle of the 


14 


210 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


following month. For some reason, Hanley has me 
pegged as a set-up and he thinks ten minutes is ample 
time for him to get in shape to flatten me. We are 
scheduled to go fifteen frames to a decision and I seen 
in one paper where Hanley says he don’t expect the 
fight to go over a couple of rounds. It turns out he’s 
a bum guesser. It didn’t go that long! 

Hanley is guaranteed $40,000. Being the cheaper 
help, I got to be satisfied with a scant twelve thousand 
and the only guarantee I got is one from Hanley’s 
manager that his champ will smack me for a Turkish 
waffle iron. That’s applesauce to me, because I have 
saw this Jimmy Hanley work, and, champ or no champ, 
he looks like he was made to order for me. And 
twelve thousand kronen for making him like it—00, 
la, la! 

Well, a short time before this setto, Spence Brock 
drops into the gym one afternoon and says he’ll come 
over to Mrs. Willcox’s boarding house that night and 
pick me up, because his father is going to have some 
friends from New York over to their place which is 
interested in me and he’d like to have ’em meet me. 
So after supper I get into my new Tuxedo which I pay 
$100 for at the New York store and go over. If I 
had of been Vincent Astor or Babe Ruth, I couldn’t of 
been treated no nicer by one and all. 

Besides Mr. Brock, they’s four or five other digni¬ 
fied-looking old guys sitting out on the big glass- 
covered pazazza in nobby Tuxedos the same as me, 
smoking and drinking—well, what they are drinking 
is nobody’s business. Anyways, me and Spence takes 


THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 


211 


grape juice when the house boy pitty-pats around for 
our order. I get introduced to everybody and they 
all shake hands and when Spence whispers to me that 
they’s about fifty million bucks represented by these 
four or five men, why, I get quite the thrill. I pay 
strict attention to everything they say and do, so’s when 
I get to be a millionaire I will at least know how to 
carry it off. 

But if I’m getting a kick out of sitting around with 
all these money kings, why, they seem to be getting a 
kick out of me, too! Which strikes me as being kind 
of comical, because I’m Mr. Nothing himself right 
then. But Spence tells me they’re all fight fans like 
his father and it is as much of a treat to them to be on 
familiar terms with the coming champion as it is for 
me to be there, if not more so. A bank president offer¬ 
ing a heavy loan would get no more attention from 
’em than I’m getting, says Spence, and he calls my 
attention to how his father is bragging about how long 
he’s knew me and the etc. These birds is under a 
heavy strain during their business hours, Spence tells 
me, and this is so much pure fun for ’em—does ’em 
good, he says, to relax and talk about something else 
besides stocks and bonds. All rich men has hobbies, 
he adds, and / have become his father’s hobby. 

I suppose another thing which give me some standing 
with Mr. Brock’s pals was the fact that I am there in 
a tux the same as they are and didn’t show up in no 
cap and sweater and bust somebody in the nose just 
to be nasty, like maybe they figured a prize fighter 
would do. Mr. Brock draws me out on how I’m com- 


212 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


ing along with my studies and he asks me questions 
about different subjects and different books he knows 
I been reading. Every time I answer him I catch his 
friends glancing from one to the other kind of sur¬ 
prised, and you ought to see Mr. Brock throw out 
his chest and beam around at ’em as much as to say: 
“This boy’s the trout’s ankles, hey?” 

Well, finally I look at my watch and it’s nine o’clock, 
and as Nate insists on early to bed and early to rise 
when I’m training for a bout, why, I get up and wish 
everybody good night. They all stand up and shake 
hands with me, saying they are glad to of met me and 
they will see me again when I fight Jimmy Hanley. 
They’re going to have ringside boxes and they hope I 
win. So I says I hope so myself, as far as that goes. 
So that was all settled. 

That interview give me quite a kick! And why 
wouldn’t it give me a kick to know a man like Mr. 
Brock was for me? Don’t get the idea in your head 
that I had any plans to quit trying or ease up on the 
pace I’d set for myself because I had a millionaire for 
a ace in the hole. The only support I wanted from Mr. 
Brock, or even from Judy, was their encouragement 
and attention to my efforts to be a success. I supplied 
the rest of the ingredients, all by myself! 

Spence walks home with me from his house that 
night, and on the ways he wants to know if I can bust 
away from my training for one afternoon the follow¬ 
ing week to see the Brooklyn Handicap run out on 
Long Island. The pet of his father’s racing stable, 
“Knight Errant” was entered in it, and Spence claimed 


THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 


213 


the big race would be a spread for this horse, which 
only a few days before had broke the track record in a 
private workout. 

"If you have a couple of thousand lying around loose 
as you must have, with the purses you’ve been getting 
for your fights lately, you bloated plutocrat, here’s a 
chance to make a lot of quick, easy money!” Spence 
wound up, “Father thinks Knight Errant will be five 
to one, at least, and he’ll win as sure as fate, or else 

_jj 

‘‘Or else he won’t!” I butt in, grinning. “I don’t 
know a thing about racing, Spence, and all I know 
about horses is that they eat a wicked oat. As for 

GAMBLING on ’em, well-” 

“Who said anything about gambling?” Spence 
interrupts. “A bet on Knight Errant to win the 
Brooklyn is no gamble, Gale, it’s a copper-riveted 
cinch! But suit yourself, of course. Far be it from 
me to lead you astray. I’m going to bet a thousand on 
Knight Errant myself and he’ll go to the post carrying 
all of dad’s money that the books will take. He gets 
in with an impost of only a hundred and ten pounds— 
a feather for him, Gale—and the best jockey in the 
East, Donovan, will have the leg up. Why, he’ll win 
by himself! At any rate, try and get away to see the 
handicap, even if you don’t bet a penny. The crowd, 
the excitement, and the soul-tingling thrill of a blanket 
finish will give you an awful kick!” 

It did give me an awful kick and no mistake! 

I lay awake a oversize hour that night, thinking 
about Spence telling me that Knight Errant will be 




214 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


unable to lose the Brooklyn Handicap at big odds. I 
had never been much of a gambler, mostly because 
until very lately I never had no spare jack to devote to 
this worthy purpose and didn’t believe in luck. Still 
and all, I couldn’t imagine Mr. Brock being wrong 
about anything, and if he's sure his horse will win— 
and at five to one! . . . 

I simply couldn’t get to sleep and that’s all there 
was to it! I remembered reading somewheres that if 
you will merely close your eyes and begin counting 
imaginery sheep jumping over imaginery fences you 
will slip right off to dreamland. So I began counting, 
but I didn’t count no sheep! What I am counting is 
dollars, like, should I bet a thousand on Knight Errant 
I would win five thousand and should I bet five thou¬ 
sand I would win twenty-five thousand and should I 
bet ten thousand I would win fifty thousand—and— 
well, the last I remembered before dropping off to 
slumber I am a trifle over a hundred thousand winner! 

The next morning I nail Nate at breakfast. 

“What d’ye think of Knight Errant in the Brooklyn 
Handicap?” I ask him, trying to be kind of careless 
about it. 

“Hey, listen,” says Nate. “Lay off the bang-tails, 
kid; they have kept me poor and broke wiser guys than 
either of us!” 

“Applesauce!” I says. “I asked you a question— 
what d’ye think of Knight Errant?” 

“He won’t be in the money!” sneers Nate. “’At 
beagle’s a sprinter, and a mile and a eighth’s too much 
race for him. Cirrus will win ’at scramble from here 


THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 


215 

to Brazil. He couldn’t lose if he left his legs in the 
paddock!” 

“But would they let him do that?” I says, with a 
sarcastical grin, and Knockout Kelly laughs. 

“Both you guys is comical to me,” says Kayo. 
“Knight Errant and Cirrus, hey? Blah! A couple 
of Airedales! Mad Hatter’s my feed-box special. 
He’ll tin-can in! I’m parlayin’ that bet right back on 
Postmaster to cop the last race. If they both come 
through, which they naturally will, I win forty-five 
hundred on the day! That’s tough, hey?” 

I leave ’em, still arguing, because that remark of 
Kayo’s about parlaying his bet gives me a wonderful 
idea. Like a flash, I see a chance to quit the ring im¬ 
mediately after my fight with Jimmy Hanley, with a 
bank roll which would startle Vanderbilt. Then I can 
pick out a business of my own and maybe Judy will 
come in as a partner, and not only in the business 
either! I can’t get to the bank quick enough. 

Without saying a word to nobody—but the paying 
teller—I draw out all of my $20,086.19 but the eighty- 
six nineteen. Then I got down to Kale Yackley’s cigar 
store and poolroom. Kale takes bets on the races, ball 
games, fights, and the like and sends ’em over to a big 
bookmaker in New York. He gets a heavy play from 
the men which works in the carpet factory and a 
couple other big plants. I ask Kale will he take a bet 
on Knight Errant to win the Brooklyn handicap. 

“That’s what I’m here for,” smiles Kale. “How 
much ?” 

“Twenty thousand dollars,” I says, calmly pulling 


216 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


out a package of brand-new thousand-dollar bills. 
“And I want it all parlayed buck on me to knock out 
Jimmy Hanley!” 

Kale’s face was a movie .as he gazes at the money, 
his eyes popping out so far you could of knocked ’em 
off with a can. But that don’t bother me, I figure if 
I’m going to gamble at all, why, I might as well plunge 
like a man—take a chance of winning all or losing all, 
like Caesar, Napoleon, and them other Big Leaguers 
done. They’s no kick in risking anything less! 

When Kale gets where he can talk, he stutters that 
he’ll have to call up “Big Bill” Jacobs, the bookmaker 
in New York, and see if he’ll take a bet as heavy and 
as cuckoo as mine. After a while he comes back, 
muttering and shaking his head. But he takes my 
jack and gives me a ticket calling for $20,000 on 
Knight Errant to win, at closing prices, and if the horse 
wins the entire loot is to go back on me, at prevailing 
odds, to knock out Hanley. “A sucker bet!” remarks 
Kale, handing me the ticket. I paid no attention. I 
am thinking if Knight Errant wins at five to one I'll 
go into the ring unth Jimmy Hanley carrying a hundred 
thousand dollars of my own money that I'll knock him 
- out! My whole future’s at stake, yet I might say I 
was as cool as a cucumber—if I wanted to be a liar. 
Later, I told Spence what I done and Spence says good 
for me, but I notice his eyes looks worried. 

Well, I go over to our office after making the bet 
with half a mind to tell Judy. Going up the stairs, I 
suddenly remember that she’s away, having took her 
mother over to New York to see a big eye doctor. 



THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 


217 


I’m coming down again, when who do I bump into at 
the first landing but Rags Dempster. I would of 
passed him without a word, but he grabs my arm and 
hangs onto me like he’s drowning. 

“For God’s sake, Galen, give me ten minutes of your 
time!’’ he pants. “I’m in a terrible fix!” 

I look at him in amazement. He seems to me like 
he’s two inches from the hystericals and if I didn’t 
know prohibition was in our midst I would swear he’s 
been drinking heavily—a favorite drink of his any 
more. I’m so surprised at the shape he’s in, wild-eyed 
and trembling, that I don’t stop to think of what a 
terrible nerve he’s got coming for help when he’s in 
a jam to the fellow he’s fouled a million times. Still 
and all, if he’s really in trouble I can’t turn him down 
cold without a hearing. I wouldn’t want nobody to do 
that to me. So I told him to come on upstairs to the 
office. 

A half hour later Rags is sitting at Judy’s desk with 
his head buried in his arms—crying like a baby. I’m 
walking up and down the floor in a trance, but even in 
the trance I notice that Rags is sitting in Judy’s chair 
and I stop walking long enough to make him get up and 
sit somewheres else. My mind’s in a whirl, it is for a 
fact, because Rags has just told me he’s stole ten 
thousand bucks from his father’s office and dropped 
every nickel of it at roulette in a New York gambling 
house. 

Sweet Mamma, what a trap he’s in! I suppose after 
what he’s done to me I should of been tickled silly that 
he’s up against it proper, but I ain’t particularly pleased. 


218 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


at that. I can’t see many giggles in anybody getting the 
worst of it, can you? 

But the thrilling part of Rags’s story is the fact that 
his father will be back from Europe the following 
day and they don’t seem to be no way out for Rags at 
all. First his father will hear about him being throwed 
out of college and the reasons why, and on top of that 
will come the knowledge that his son is a crook. Be¬ 
tween moans, Rags tells me his father is what you call 
a hard man and not only will he cut off a finger nail, 
but they’s more than a even chance that he’ll send him 
to jail for good measure! 

Well, they’s something pitiful in seeing a man weep 
—and something disgusting, too. So I slap Rags on 
the heaving shoulders and tell him to snap out of it 
and I’ll help him. After all, I think, this bird has been 
going down steadily while I been going up. Maybe 
the breaks has been against him. 

Then, again, I figure to have a fortune when Knight 
Errant wins the handicap and I smack Jimmy Hanley 
silly, and it looks like I have drew away from Rags in 
the race for Judy, too. All together, I seem to be 
sitting pretty and I remember in the Bible which Mrs. 
Willcox gives me it says: “If thine enemy be hungry, 
give him bread to eat; if he be thirsty, give him water 
to drink!” So I finally pull Rags together and send 
him away with my word that I’ll loan him the jack to 
make his shortage good. 

As I have bet every dime I got in the world on 
Knight Errant, why, getting together them ten thousand 
bucks for Rags is something of a trick and don’t think 


THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 


219 


it ain’t! I didn’t know nobody I would ask for that 
much dough, even if I needed it for myself. Still, I 
got it! It was a case of where they’s a will, they’s ten 
thousand dollars.” 

After a two-day tongue battle with Denver Nolan, 
I got him to advance me ten thousand and I agree to 
call my twelve thousand guarantee for the Jimmy 
Hanley fight square. I lose two thousand bucks by 
playing Lady Bountiful for Rags, but I think what 
will a mere two thousand mean to me after I win my 
bet? Anyways, I give Rags the money and my word 
of honor that I won’t tell nobody nothing about it. 

When the day of the Brooklyn Handicap rolls around 
I drive over early to the Aqueduct track with Judy in 
my chumpy roadster. There was no more people there 
than there is in South Dakota and getting seats in the 
grand stand was a considerable feat, but we got ’em. 
There’s three races before the big handicap, but they 
don’t mean nothing to me, though I holler my head off 
with the rest, at a neck-and-neck finish in the steeple¬ 
chase. 

The excitement seems to hit Judy too, and she’s 
having the time of her life! With her cheeks flushed 
a rosy red and her beautiful eyes sparkling like 
sapphires in a ring, she’s a sight there ain’t nobody for¬ 
getting overnight. She gets a third look from every¬ 
body and maybe I don’t feel proud to be with her when 
them necks twists around after us! 

Well, nothing will do but she has got to bet on a 
horse and when I says wait till the Brooklyn Handicap 
is over and I’ll bet with her, she laughs and says I 


220 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


have been talking about nothing but that race since 
morning and anybody would think I had a fortune bet 
on it. Sweet Grandpa, if she only knew what I did have 
at stake! I ain’t told her a word about it, I want to 
surprise her after the race—and that’s what I done. 

However, she closes her eyes and sticks her hatpin 
through the program for the third race. The pin goes 
through the name of a horse entitled Babbling Brook, 
and Judy sends me down to the betting ring with two 
bucks to lay on that baby for her! When I commence 
to tell her what a foolish way that is to gamble when 
she don’t know nothing about the horse and just picked 
it blind, she starts to get sore, so I go down and bet her 
two dollars on Babbling Brook. I got my mind made 
up that when this goat runs last I will give her back 
her money and tell her I was too late to get it down. 

Babbling Brook win by two lengths at twenty-five 
to one! 

The next race is the Brooklyn, and by the time them 
horses is on their ways to the post I’m in terrible shape. 
The mob rushes to the rail and banks twenty deep 
against it—the buzzing, rumbling roar of their excited 
voices coming up to me in the grand stand just like it 
comes over the ropes to me in the ring. 

I am trembling like a leaf and though I sink my 
teeth in my lower lip that don’t seem to stop it. I 
borrow a pair of opera glasses from a cold-faced hard¬ 
eyed guy next to me and I manage to pick out Knight 
Errant from the eleven prancing horses leaving the 
paddock. Mr. Brook’s entry looks like a million 
dollars, tossing its shinny black head, rarin’ to go! 


THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 


221 


I can’t sit down, and, for that matter, everybody 
seems to be standing on their seats, all chattering and 
laughing kind of nervous and elbowing each other 
this way and that. I hear a dozen horses’ names. 

‘Mad Hatter’s a good thing!” . . . “Cirrus will win 
in a walk! ’ . . . “Boniface is a cinch at the weights!” 
. . . “Watch Knight Errant!” . . . Then, thirty 
thousand voices in one terrible roar which rolls across 
the field and echoes back: “They’re off!” 

I don’t want no more twenty-thousand-dollar bets 
on no horse races when twenty thousand is all I got 
to my name. I put on ten years in the two minutes it 
took ’em to run that handicap! The big crowd has 
went cuckoo, howling and screaming like thirty thou¬ 
sand maniacs: . . . “Come on with Mad Hatter, 
come on with him, Jock!” “Use your whip, you dum- 
bell!” “Boniface, Boniface, Boniface!” “Cirrus all 
the way!” “Knight Errant walks in!” “Aaaaah, look 
at the favorite run!” 

I get swept off my perch, and the next thing I know 
I am half ways down the steps to the field, pulled along 
by the yelling lunatics. Battling my way, I get to the 
fence, minus my hat, some buttons off my coat and 
the flap of a pocket. I hear ’em thundering into the 
stretch and then I see ’em bunched together on the 
far rail, a flying, bobbing mass of color. All of a 
sudden I let out a wild yell of joy. Out in front the 
jockey’s arm rising and falling with the whip like he’s 
beating a drum, is Knight Errant! I know Mr. 
Brock’s color’s; red cap, blue jacket with red bars. 
Knight Errant closed at three to one, not the five to 


222 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


one I expected, but sixty thousand for me if he wins! 
If he loses. . . 

But you seen it in the papers. Knight Errant 
stumbled fifty yards from the finish, recovered too 
late, and run—fifth! 

The jam at the rail breaks up quick. Lots of fel¬ 
lows is yelling with joy and running up to cash in their 
tickets as the numbers goes up, 6-3-1-Cirrus, Boni¬ 
face, Mad Hatter. Others, like me, just stands there 
in a trance. It kind of slowly begins to get through 
my num head that I am clean—I ain’t got a nickel in 
the wide, wide world. And as for Judy—miles away, 
hundreds of miles! 

Then I think to myself: “Well, you big stiff, what 
are you going to do, bust out crying? Snap out of 
it! You couldn’t get that twenty thousand back 
if you sobbed your eyes out— you can’t get nothing 
if you’re going to moan about it. Forget it, and 
start the ball rolling for another bank roll. It’s all 
fun !” 

I’m plowing my ways through the crowd back to 
Judy, a little bit older, but at least with my head up, 
when I bump smack into the last guy in the world I 
expect to see at a race track just then—Rags. He’s 
tearing up some tickets and cursing Mr. Brock and 
Knight Errant, over and over again. Well, it kind of 
dumfounds me that Rags would be able to make a bet 
on anything when he’s in a jam like he is now, so I 
ask him about it. He seems a bit startled to see me, 
peering at me out of a set of bloodshot eyes which has 
booze printed on ’em in raised letters. 


THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 


223 


“Is it any of your affair what I do?” he snarls, 
glaring at me. 

“Well, no—I guess it ain’t, Rags,” I says. “Only 
I’d think a fellow which is in the trouble you are-” 

He busts out laughing at the top of his voice and I 
stop in the greatest of surprise. 

“What’s the joke?” I says. 

Rag’s lip curls at me in one of them sneers which 
would make a rabbit aggressive. 

“You’re the joke, my poor fool!” he says. “I’m 
not in any trouble—I never stole anything! I saw a 
chance for a clean-up on that infernal nag of Brock’s, 
Knight Errant, if I had a respectable amount of 
money to bet. So I concocted that embezzlement 
story for your sole benefit and you fell for it beauti¬ 
fully, you boob! Ten thousand dollars for the mere 
asking, though you must admit I put on some artistic 
touches. Well, you owe me something for coming 
between me and Judy Willcox. As for the ten 
thousand—try and get it, that’s all! You have noth¬ 
ing to show that I owe you a penny, and I have 
your word of honor that you’ll never tell!” 

Well, I just stand there and stare into his grinning 
face. I’m afraid to touch him, honest I am, because 
I know I would never be satisfied with,just beating 
him up! I’d bump him off as sure as my name’s Gale 
Galen, and I didn’t want to go to the chair. But 
somebody pushes in between us and grabs Rags’s arm. 
It’s Nate Shapiro and his face is as white as white 
itself. 

“You double-crossin’, yellah hound!” he bawls at 



224 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Rags. “You bet he’s got somethin’ to show ’at you 
owe him ’at jack—he’s got me! I heard every word 
you said, d’ye get that , you crook? I know Gale 
he’ll never cuff you, but it’s different here! You re 
laughin’, hey? Well, laugh this off!” 

With that he knocks Rags flat on his shoulder 
blades, and then ducks through the crowd which comes 
running up. I continue on up to the grand stand and 
Judy. 

I guess she knows something is wrong the minute 
she sees me, though I try to act natural. 

“Gale, what’s the matter?” she says quickly. “Did 
you lose on that race?” 

I nod my head, it’s buzzing like a bee-hive. 

“How much?” she wants to know, pulling me 
around till I face her. 

“Oh, just a few dollars,” I says, with a synthetic 
grin. 

I should of knew by this time that I can’t fool Judy. 
In a few minutes she draws the entire box score from 
me, with the slight exception of what Rags has did. 
I see by her pale face that it’s a terrible blow to her 
to hear I have lost my last dime on this horse race. 
But instead of bawling me out, a thing I confidently 
expect, why, she is just full of sympathy, squeezing 
my arm and telling me never mind I’ll soon have it all 
back and more. Coming at a time when I never needed 
it worse, her sweetness is more than a tonic and does 
wonders for my peace of mind. Ain’t'she a knockout, 
no fooling? 

I sit there just looking at her and I find the view a 


THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 22 q 

Wv 

thrilling one indeed. Em doing a piece of heavy think¬ 
ing—thinking what I could do if she’d always be with 
me, when I hear her saying that I don’t have to start 
penniless, I’ll at least have the twelve thousand I’m 
going to get for my fight with Jimmy Hanley for the 
light heavyweight title. 

Before I get a chance to stall on this subject, along 
comes Nate, still steamed up about Rags. His first 
remark, though, is that he win five thousand even on 
Cirrus, and that Kayo Kelly dropped one thousand on 
Mad Hatter and is fit to be tied. Then he turns to Judy. 

“Did Gale tell you what that—what Rags Dempster 
done to him?” he demands. 

Judy’s eyes widens and she says no. I try to shut 
Nate up, but he tells Judy how Rags took me for that 
ten thousand bucks and made me like it. Well, she 
goes right up in flames and says she will go to Rags’s 
father and tell him the whole business and make him 
pay me. Honest, I never see her so hopping mad be¬ 
fore in all my life! But I make her promise to lay 
off. What good would it do to tell Rags’s old man. 
I got no proof and who’s word would his father take ? 
To tell you the truth, I’m more interested in the fact 
that Judy thinks enough of me to want to go to the 
bat for me than I am in the ten thousand or ten 
million! 

Well, three days later I fight Jimmy Hanley and 
you know what happened. I never went into a battle 
more determined to win and win quick! Before the 
bell rings for the first frame, I got everything to set 
in my mind. If I lose this scrap, I got to start at the 
is 


226 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


bottom and begin all over again, broke. The five 
thousand and up purses will be a thing of the past till 
I can fight my ways to another chance at the title. If 
I win it, why, I’m a champion and I can write my own 
ticket for the amounts I get to display my wares. I 
can even go to Europe and get a crack at Gunner 
Slade, world’s champion light heavy. Yet, I got to 
win and win quick! 

As I had gave Rags Dempster the money I was to 
get for this scuffle, I am really fighting Hanley for 
nothing, but I find that more of a help than anything 
else. Hanley come out smiling at the bell, nodding to 
friends at the close-packed ringside. He blocks my 
straight left and counters with a light jab to my 
mouth. I shake my head and bore in to close quarters 
and both of us land hard rights and lefts to the body, 
while the crowd settles back to look at a long, tough 
fight. 

The next second they are all on their feet, triple 
cuckoo! As we come out of a clinch, we both start a 
right swing for the other’s jaw. I beat Hanley to the 
punch, connecting solidly, and he went down on his 
haunches like somebody tripped him. The house is in 
a uproar as the referee begins the counting and one 
look at Hanley’s goofy, how-did-this-happen grin is 
enough for me! I know how to work when he gets 
up—if he does. 

He did. He’s on his feet at “eight” and the custom¬ 
ers howl for me to finish him. I gives him plenty chance 
to stand erect and then I measure him with a light 
left and sock my right to his heart. He falls over 


THE KNIGHT THAT FAILED 


227 


on me and hangs there for his life, gasping for breath. 

The referee finally tears him away and Hanley sur¬ 
prises me with a wild left hook to the head which 
sends me back against the ropes and gives his friends 
a chance to yell. But that’s just a dying flurry. 
Hanley never got over that first punch which floored 
him, and I know it’s only a question now of a open¬ 
ing ! I don’t want to cut him up by playing safe and 
wearing him down, as some guys would of done. I 
want to slip him a clean knockout—quick, painless, 
and a proper way for a champ to lose. The way I 
wanted to get it myself when my time came. 

The opening comes thirty seconds before the bell 
and just when Hanley seems to be finding himself and 
getting stronger. I am covered up and letting him 
drive me across the ring with a shower of lefts and 
rights, most of which is bouncing off my bent elbows, 
but some of which gets through. The ones which did 
connect was not doing me no good and that’s a fact! 
Hanley was a mean puncher, but that knockdown has 
ruined his timing and generalship. He’s snarling at 
me to open up and fight when I suddenly hook my left 
to his wind with everything I got behind it. 

Hanley grunts, looks worried and backs away, while 
advice pours from his corner like water over a dam! 
I follow him slowly to the ropes, stabbing my left in 
his face to keep him from setting for a punch. A 
quick feint for his body draws down his guard, and 
I throw a right at his head which buckles his shaky 
knees and brings the bawling mob to its feet again. 
Dizzy and all at sea, Hanley swings a vicious left, and 


.228 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


I step in under it, crossing my right flush to his jaw. 
This punch should of knocked him cold. It did! 

I am light heavyweight champion of America, but 
I ain’t got a dime to my name. 

Mr. Brock and Spence is the first ones to greet me 
when I climb down under the ropes after my one- 
round win. Mr. Brock grabs my glove and pumps 
my hand up and down till my arm’s sore. Then he 
tells me Spence has wised him up to what happened to 
me when Knight Errant stumbled in the stretch. He 
claims he feels more or less responsible for me going 
to the cleaners, as his son laid me on the horse, and 
he wants to make good my twenty thousand out of his 
own pocket. As if I’d let him! 

“But, you poor devil—” begins Mr. Brock, when 
I says no. 

“I ain’t no poor devil, Mister Brock, don’t call me 
that!” I says, quietly. “I hate that expression! I 
don’t want to be cried over. I’m young and healthy 
and I got some valuable experience now that I didn’t 
have before. In a way, I’m glad I lost that money. 
It’s cured me forever of gambling, that’s a cinch! If 
I’d of won that bet, I might be hanging around the 
race tracks till I lost my ambition and a few other 
things which is more than money. I’ll start right in 
again to-morrow doing my stuff, and-” 

“But you haven't a penny!” interrupts Mr. Brock 
impatiently. “You are just where you started!” 

“Oh, no, I’m not just where I started, Mister 
Brock,” I grins, throwing out my chest. “You forget 
-—I’m a champion!” 



ROUND EIGHT 


CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 

Being a champion at anything is a wonderful sen¬ 
sation, but it goes to your head like bootleg. Success 
has knocked as many fellows cold as failure ever did, 
what I mean, because you get careless when you get to 
the top, and you take chances you would never of 
thought of when you was just one of the mob. You 
get to thinking you’re unvincible, and a guy which 
figures himself bombproof in any game gives old man 
Destiny the hystericals! Leading the pack in a race 
where they’s only room for one in front is a exceed¬ 
ingly ticklish position. They’s always somebody else 
coming up with a rush just the way you did, and the 
fatal mistake of holding that baby too cheaply usually 
accounts for the fall of the mighty, in the prize ring 
or in anything else! 

After my win over Jimmy Hanley, I passed through 
the dangerous stage which all winners has got to pass 
through sooner or later. Some comes out of it champs 
and some comes out of it tramps. I come out still a 
champion, but Judy was responsible for that. Gee, 
what a sap I made out of myself for a while! They’s 
no telling what cuckoo stunts I might of did or where 
I’d of wound up if Judy hadn’t snapped me out of it in 


229 


230 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


time. But still, as she said, the experience I had was 
necessary to bring me back to earth. The important 
money I had been taking in, the kick of seeing my name 
all over the sporting pages, getting offers from movie 
companies, having people turn to look after me on the 
street and acting proud to shake my hand—all that 
coming almost overnight, you might say, was a bit 
too much for me! I got no chancce to get used to it. 

But just as losing every nickel I had on the first 
horse race I ever bet on in my life cured me of gam¬ 
bling, so did my first bout with Battling Whisky turn 
me forever from the cup that queers. I at least had 
brains enough to realize in time that in both drinking 
and gambling I was putting in far more than I could 
ever hope to take out—risking my self-respect, Judy, 
and my future against this thing they call luck and a 
drink of whisky! 

This particular adventure of mine liked to cost me 
my brand new title. Judy says it was worth it and I 
got off cheap. I don’t know—here’s the dope, what 
do you think ? 

As I mentioned before, Gunner Slade, light-heavy¬ 
weight champ of the civilized world, had promised me 
a fight if I beat Jimmy Hanley. But it was different 
after the Gunner sees by the cables that I flatten James 
with a few punches. That one-frame win makes Mr. 
Slade very thoughtful indeed and he demands a hun¬ 
dred thousand fish—win, lose, or draw—for risking 
his championship in a scuffle with me. He might as 
well of asked for the Eyetalian throne! The fight pro¬ 
moters on both sides of the bounding main just giggle 


CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 


231 


at him, and he goes on about his business, beating up 
them foreign set-ups and perfectly satisfied with every - 
thing. 

But I ain’t satisfied! I want to win the world’s 
championship, box a couple of times for plenty pennies 
and then step down from the ring—or up—to the busi¬ 
ness world. That means Judy and Judy means— 
everything. 

So I reversed the usual custom for a champion by 
hurling challenges at the leading contenders in my divi¬ 
sion. The sport writers, which had always been nice 
to me, seems to get quite a kick out of this, and I was 
on the sporting pages every day as regular as the date 
line. I got lots of publicity, pleasing to the eye, but 
not so good as a food! 

Well, the time goes on and I don’t see no jack in 
sight. I’m doing about as much business as if I was 
selling sleighs in Los Angeles, and I’m plenty dis¬ 
gusted. I’m sitting in our office one day talking things 
over with Judy, when a thought smacks me right in 
the face. I could of kick myself for not thinking of 
it before! The purses which the New York promoters 
was offering me for fights thrills me about as much as 
it thrills a aviator to go up in a elevator, but this scheme 
I have suddenly hit on looks like a wow! 

In the land of Columbus, Ohio, there was a light 
heavyweight which from the newspaper reports must 
be using buzz saws for sparring partners and concrete 
silos for punching bags. His name in round numbers 
was Kid Christopher, and he’s so tough he rips his 
'clothes to shreds just putting ’em on. Out in far-off 


232 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Columbus they thought Kid Christopher was the par¬ 
rot’s beak and a better man than I’ll ever be. Yet 
I’m champion in his class and he’s failed to challenge 
me for a quarrel. All right, I’ll challenge him! 

“Judy,” I says, “write a letter to Kid Christopher’s 
manager asking him how much wages he wants for 
his visible means of support to fight me for the light- 
heavyweight title.” 

She raises her beautiful eyebrows in surprise. “But 
the highest bid from the New York promoters was 
forty thousand dollars—thirty for you and ten for 
Christopher,” says Judy. “And Christopher has re¬ 
fused that amount. I have the correspondence all here, 
and-” 

She starts for the files, but I stop her. “Never mind 
the letters, Judy,” I says. “And never mind the New 
York promoters. I’m going to promote this fight my¬ 
self!” 

Judy looks at me with these eyes which has been 
goaling the boys since she’s been seven years old. 

“What do you mean, Gale?” she asks, plenty inter¬ 
ested. 

“I’ll tell you, Judy,” I says. “I been thinking mat¬ 
ters over, and I have reached the conclusion that I can 
use a million the same as a fight promoter can! I got 
just as much brains and twice the ambition as any of 
them birds, get me ? Why should I go in there and get 
my head beat off for ten or twenty thousand bucks so’s 
some wise guy promoter can draw down a hundred 
thousand for himself? Why shouldn’t the fighter get 
the big money for doing his stuff? Who draws the 



CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 233 


crowd? Who does the fighting? The scrapper! 
Who gets the money? The promoter! Well, I don’t 
need no promoters. I’ll stage my next battle myself 
and find out for good and all whether they is anything 
else I can do besides fight, or am I doomed to be a 
leather pusher for the rest of my natural life!” 

By this time Judy is all excited and the skin I’d 
love to touch is flushed a rosy red. 

“Of course, Gale, I’m delighted to know you want to 
try anything apart from prize fighting,” she says. 
“And maybe if you are successful in promoting this 
fight, that will be an incentive to you to try promoting 
bigger things. Just how will you go about it?” 

“Well,” I says, “first I’ll get together with Nate 
and figure out how much actual cash we’ll have to put 
up for the rent of a arena, Kid Christopher’s guaran¬ 
tee, the dough for the preliminary boys, and all that 
stuff. Then when I get the figures, why, I’ll just go 
out and raise the jack. That’s all they is to that!” 

Judy smiles. “As easy as that?” she says, kind of 
doubtful. “I’m not trying to discourage you, Gale, 
but it seems to me all that will take a lot of money. 
Where will you get it?” 

“Faint heart never won a bank roll!” I grins back 
at her. “I’ll form a pool right here in Drew City 
among my friends, each one to put in so much, and, 
after the fight, take down profits according to their 
investment. They’s Mister Brock, Spence, Lem Gar¬ 
field, Ajariah Stubbs, Knockout Kelly, Nate, Kale 
Yackley, and plenty more which has got lavish umbrella 
money hid out for a rainy day. Of course, it’s going 


234 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


to take a lot of arguing and before I raise the first ten 
grand I’ll probably be hoarse—but I’ll get it and don’t 
think I won’t. I got my heart set on this, Judy, and 
what I set my heart on I generally get!” 

I look right at her when I say that, and I ain’t think¬ 
ing of the money I got to raise either. And I guess 
neither was Judy, because that schoolgirl complexion 
suddenly turns crimson and she monkeys with the 
notes on her typewriter desk for a minute. 

'Well, Gale, it’s certainly an ambitious effort, but I 
know you’ll be equal to it!” she says finally, and shakes 
my hand. But she pulls hers away when I act like I 
never want to let go. “I wish you luck,” she adds, 
“and if you don’t let me help in some way, I’ll—I’ll 
be real angry!” 

I stand as close to her as she’ll let me and I’m ting¬ 
ling all over—fighting the idea of putting my arms 
around her, like I always had to fight that idea when 
I’m near her! 

“Judy,” I says, “you keep an being nice to me and 
you’ll be helping a lot! That’s all you got to do—just 
act as if—as if you liked me, even a little. Whenever 
I think you do—say, I feel they’s nothing can stop 
me! I-” 

“Of course I like you, Gale,” says Judy, calmly 
shutting me off, as usual. “Now go and start putting 
your plans into action while you’re enthusiastic about 
them. That’s always the best time!” 

And she turns back to her typewriter. A polite 
“Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” Well, as the 
French says: “alpha beta gamma delta!” 



CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 235 

The first snag I hit in my campaign to raise this 
sugar is no less than Mr. Nathan Shapiro. Before I 
get half ways through telling Nate about my scheme 
to personally promote my clash with Christopher of 
Columbus, why, Nate throws up his hands and hollers 
that I’m cuckoo. He’s all steamed up. They’s a million 
reasons why I shouldn’t think of such a thing, he says, 
yet when I pin him down he can only name one reason. 
That’s that I ain’t got no experience as a fight promo¬ 
ter. 

“Nate,” I says, “Noah never had no experience with 
boats, but he sailed a mean ark! Adam never had no 
experience at nothing and-” 

“And he got throwed out of the Garden of Eden 
on his ear!” butts in Nate. “You go boundin’ around 
tryin’ to raise any jack in this slab and ’at’s what’ll 
happen to us! These yokels is closer than a tie game. 
They wouldn’t give a dime to see Niagara Falls run 
backward—can you picture ’em givin’ you pennies to 
put into a box fight in New York? Be yourself!” 

“I’ll bet you five hundred bucks I raise the dough in 
a week,” I says; “money talks!” 

“Money may talk in some places,” sneers Nate, “but 
you’ll find it deaf and dumb here! I won’t make no 
bet with you, though. You’re too lucky for me, kid. 
Say—if you fell off a dock, you’d come up with a tube 
of radium in each hand!” 

The next time I see Nate, why I ain’t got no tube 
nf radium in each hand, but I got enough money in 
each hand to buy ’em! 

My second interview is with Spence Brock. Spence 



236 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


thinks my scheme is the gnat’s elbow and nothing will 
do but he’s got to run me up to his father with it. Mr. 
Brock listens to my sales talk, asks a few questions 
about one thing and the other, chews on his always 
unlit cigar for a minute, cocks a eye at me—and then 
starts the ball rolling with a check for twenty-five 
thousand dollars! Spence comes across with a thou¬ 
sand. When I got outside their house I capered around 
till should anybody of saw me they would of took it 
for granted I’m crazy—and I am crazy with joy! 

Then I begin a house-to-house canvass among the 
people I know in Drew City. I put everything I got 
into my selling argument, changing it for almost every 
person I hit for a contribution, or rather for a invest¬ 
ment, as I hope to pay interest which will make the 
First National Bank’s 4 per cent look silly! 

I play up to each one’s weakness as I know it, show 
’em figures on the gate receipts of some carefully 
selected championship fights, promise I won’t take my 
share of the purse till everybody has got their dough 
back with a handsome profit, and wind up by showing 
’em Mr. Brock’s name at the head of the list for that 
twenty-five grand. They couldn’t laugh that off and it 
generally sold ’em! 

A twenty-minute talk lands Kale Yackley for a five- 
hundred-buck subscription. My next stop is Ajariah 
Stubbs. Time put in, one hour ten minutes; result, 
$2,500. I take Lem Garfield for five hundred; Red 
Fish has a thousand bucks’ worth of faith in me; an¬ 
other grand comes easy from a pool at Nickmeyer’s 
Garage, and that’s the way it goes all along the line. 


CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 237 


Even Judy and her mother insist on having a interest 
in the thing, and though I don’t want them to gamble 
their money on me, why, they force me to take two 
hundred. 

In three days I have collected a total of forty thou¬ 
sand iron men right in Drew City from people which 
was willing to back up their belief in me with the great¬ 
est proof of friendship they is in the world—money! 
Believe me, I felt my responsibility and I was proud 
of it. I couldn’t of been such a flop or they’d never 
take a chance like that on nothing but my word, would 
they ? 

Well, when Nate comes back to our office from 
Buffalo with Knockout Kelly, where Kayo stopped 
Indian Brown in three rounds, and I tell him what 
I’ve done, why, he’s speechless. But Nate’s never 
speechless for long! After remarking that if he had 
my nerve he’d open a sailboat factory on the Sara 
Desert, he says he’ll just toss in ten thousand of his 
own and Kayo will sweeten the pot with five more. 

“Well—I—eh—I was goin’ to get a car,’’ begins 
Kayo. 

“Blah!” says Nate. “What do you know about 
autos ? I bet you think a chassey is lingerie! Put him 
down for five grand,” he adds to me. “I’ll send a 
wire to Kid Christopher’s pilot offerin’ him fifteen 
thousand for his end and ’at’s all he’ll get if he cries 
his eyes out! Let’s sit down now and dope out how 
much jack we’ll need to stage this frolic.” 

So that’s what we done. Allowing fifteen thousand 
for Kid Christopher’s guarantee, three or four thou- 


238 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


sand more for the preliminary bouts, and around fifty 
thousand for rent of a arena, timekeepers, ticket sellers, 
ushers, referees, advertising, etc. and etc., we get a 
grand total of about $70,000 for expenses, without 
counting my share of the purse. 

As champion, I’m entitled to at least a third of the 
gross receipts, and I figure with proper publicity the 
fight will draw almost a $200,000 gate. With expenses 
and my share totalling, say $130,000, that leaves 
seventy thousand profit to go to the people which put 
up the forty thousand in Drew City, or almost two to 
one for their money. That’s, of course, if everything 
goes O. K. 

Nate glances over the list of investors and he sud¬ 
denly looks up. 

“Does Rags Dempster ever crack anything about ’at 
ten grand he gypped you out of?” he asks. 

“I never see him no more, Nate,” I says, “and I’m 
just as tickled.” 

“Yeah?” snarls Nate. “Well, I’ll make him or his 
old man come through with ’at jack if it’s the last 
thing I do!” 

He gets up and grabs his hat. “Wait here,” he 
says, with a odd smile. “You think you're good as a 
collector—well, I’m going over and bear down heavy 
on old man Dempster, and I bet I can make him see 
his way clear to investin’ ten thousand in our fight!” 

Nate’s gone before I realize that he’s going to try 
and make Rags Dempster’s father pay back the ten 
thousand his sissy son got away from me. 

A hour comes and goes and no sign of Nate. Then 


CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 


239 


Judy trips into the office, looking kind of puzzled. She 
says she didn’t know that Nate and Rags was so 
friendly. I ask her what does she mean and she says 
she has just saw them going into the office of the 
Dempster Carpet Factory, arm in arm. It’s my turn 
to look puzzled, and that’s what I’m doing when Nate 
busts in, out of breath and grinning like a hyena. 

“I’m what you call a collectin’ fool!” He pants, 
throwing a pink slip of paper down in front of me. 
“There’s your ten grand—laugh that off!” 

I snatched up the paper and sure enough it’s a check 
for ten thousand, signed by old man Dempster. 

“Do you mean to tell me that Mr. Dempster took 
your word that his son owed me that money?’’ I says, 
in amazement. 

“No,” says Nate. “He took his son’s word for it!” 

“What on earth made Rags act decently, for once 
in his life?’’ butts in Judy. 

“This!” says Nate, reaching back on his hip and 
throwing a ugly-looking automatic on the desk. Judy 
gasps and edges away. “I meet this Rags on the 
street,” goes on Nate, “and I tell him if he don’t come 
over to his old man with me and promote ’at ten grand 
I’ll cook him! Rags laughs. Then I move close to 
him and let him feel the gat in my pocket. When he 
starts to squawk I says make it snappy, or I’ll put a 
hole in him you could drive a truck through. ’At 
makes Rags see things in a different light, and we 
wind up in his old man’s office. I speak my piece, and, 
with the gun at his back through my coat, Rags says 
I’m tellin’ the truth. The old boy’s burnt up, but he 


240 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


give me the jack when I says my next stop is the 
newspaper office!” 

Nate leans back looking highly satisfied with him¬ 
self and he’s entitled to. He done a good job! But 
Judy seems worried and thinking about something else. 

“You will be careful, won’t you, Gale?” she-says 
to me, suddenly. “Rags will be sure to attempt some 
—some underhanded reprisal for being made to con¬ 
fess to his father.” 

“I wisht he would,” says Nate, pocketing his gun. 
“All I want is a excuse which will look good to a jury 
and I’ll rub out ’at clown like you rub out a blot!” 

Before I can say anything, a messenger boys comes 
in with a wire from Kid Christopher’s manager ac¬ 
cepting our terms for a fifteen-round championship 
brawl, and that drives Rags out of our heads for the 
time being. But Rags come back and he come back 
heavy! 

A couple days later Spence Brock tells me he was 
over to New York and who does he run into but Rags, 
which it lit up like a electric sign. Spence tries to duck, 
as he likes this baby and pneumonia the same way, but 
Rags nails him. During the course of the conversa¬ 
tion, which Spence says was all one-sided, it comes out 
that Rags has been gave the air by his father and is 
working in New York. He’s all swelled up like a jump 
over his job, which is manager in “Louvers,” one of 
the wildest cabarets on Broadway. 

Rags and his dizzy pals used to hang out in this 
trap, and Spence figures that he got the job on the 
strength of his acquaintance with the high-stepping 


CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 241 


bunch from the college. What Rags really is at Lou¬ 
vers, says Spence, is a decoy. Spence also warns me 
to look out for Rags, as this sapolio blames me for his 
father making Drew City out of bounds for him. I 
thank Spence for the tip-off, but I can’t see how Rags 
can do me any harm. Anyways, as he’s finished second 
every time, we’ve hooked up, why, my idea is that he’s 
got enough. 

But Rags is a glutton for punishment! The very 
next day Constabule Watson drops in the office and 
asks me and Nate to step over to Judge Tuckerman’s 
court, as the judge wants to see us about our stock¬ 
selling scheme. Somebody has told the judge, says the 
constabule confidentially, that we are obtaining money 
under false pretenses. We both know that the “some¬ 
body” is Rags, without being told, so me and Nate 
just looks at each other and follows the constabule 
over. On the ways we stop and pick up Lem Garfield, 
now our official lawyer. Lem gets our case moved up 
and I tell the judge how I’m trying to stage this fight 
with Kid Christopher myself, how everybody which 
puts up a dime is protected by a claim on the gate re¬ 
ceipts and all their profits has got to come out before 
I touch a penny. Then I pass up the subscription list 
to him and the first thing which meets his eye is “John 
T. Brock, $25,000.” He never looked no farther! 

“Ah-ptu!” he says, hitting the cuspidor with mar¬ 
velous aim and speaking to Lem. “Counselor, your 
clients is discharged. This here seems perfectly legal, 
open, and above board to me and such is my rulin’. 
Anything John Brock has got anything to dew with 

16 


242 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


is suthin’ I’d like to git in! Jest put me down for a 
thousand dollars. Next case !” 

So that was all settled. 

But our troubles ain’t over yet. The New York 
fight promoters gets red-headed over me turning down 
their offers and trying to promote my own show. The 
result is that when Nate goes over to look around for 
a battle ground they is nothing stirring. The Boxing 
Commission also gives him a pushing around when he 
applies for a license and for a while it looks like we are 
up against a stone wall. Then Mr. Brock come to the 
rescue again. He’s got more influence in New York 
than the Prince of Wales got in Buckingham’s Palace 
and a few words from him in the right places done the 
trick. We got a license from the commission and the 
lease of a ball park for the night of the scrap, just 
twenty-four hours after I went up to his house with 
Spence and told him what was what! 

Well, with all this stuff out of the way, I went into 
training for Kid Christopher—Knockout Kelly, Two- 
Punch Jackson, and Tommy O’Ryan helping condition 
me, as usual. At nights me and Judy studies over 
publicity plans with the idea of making a record at¬ 
tendance certain. I want to cook up something new— 
something which has never been done before in con¬ 
nection with a box fight and which will be a added 
reason for making everybody want to see me and Kid 
Christopher do our stuff. 

Finally I hit on a idea which Judy thinks is the 
duck’s quack. It’s just this—I’m going to have a 
drawing of ticket numbers in the ring immediately be- 


CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 243 

fore the main bout. The holder of the lucky ticket will 
be gave one thousand bucks cash! There’s a nifty 
which will only cost us another grand and which I 
figure will win us twenty times that much in extra 
tickets sold. Just think, for a five-buck bleacher seat, 
or a twenty-five-buck ringside seat, you got a chance to 
see the fight and go home a thousand fish to the good! 
The kid’s clever, hey ? 

We got plenty publicity on this, and don’t think we 
didn’t. The results is that tickets begin to sell like 
rain would sell in Hades, and a couple of weeks before 
the meelee we are all sold out! 

Nate and Judy is in New York one day checking 
up with the ticket stands and I am sitting in our office 
alone going over my figures, when a delegation calls 
on me headed by the last guy I ever expected to see 
again anywheres—Rags Dempster. Trying to get 
rid of this bird is like trying to get rid of measles! 
Besides Rags, they’s three other guys—pale, hard- 
faced, and cold-eyed. I can’t help thinking how perfect 
they’d all look wearing green eyeshades and with a 
deck of cards in their hands—or, maybe, automatics! 

Rags looks around the office, evidently for Judy, and 
that heats me up to begin with. He greets me with 
a kind o'f sickly grin. Then he wants to know did Nate 
give me the ten thousand. I nod my head, watching 
the other guys carefully, and wondering what’s what. 

“Well, we’re all squared up, then,” says Rags. 
“Would you mind giving me a receipt—eh—say: 
‘Received of Maurice Dempster ten thousand dollars.’ 
Sort of make it—eh—regular?” 


244 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


“Your father’s check will be plenty receipt when it 
comes back from the bank,” I says. “I won’t give you 
no receipt which says that you have gave me ten thou¬ 
sand dollars. I might be misunderstood!” 

“Do you think I would show it to anyone?” says 
Rags, trying to act indignant. 

“You might lose it,” I says, with a sarcastic grin. 

“Oh, come on, Galen, act like a human being,” says 
Rags. “You have no kick coming. If we have had a 
few tilts, why, you’ve always come out on top, haven’t 
you? Won the fair lady and all that sort of thing!” 

“One more mention of the fair lady, Rags,” I says, 
stepping close to him, “and I'll put you on the floor, 

i 

get me?” I look right at his friends, but they don't 
crack a word. “They’s no use of dragging this con¬ 
ference out, Rags,” I go on. “You and me will never 
be lovers, and we both know it! What d’ye want and 
who’s your friends?” 

“They’re your friends too,” says Rags, “or, at least, 
they want to be. Shake hands with Kansas City Yerks, 
Doc Neil, and Rudy Bernstein. You’ve heard of them, 
of course.” 

Of course I hadn’t. I shook hands warily, and 
Kansas City Yerks clears his throat. 

“You got a big thing in this box fight of yours, kid,” 
he says. “A big thing! You ought to click off a 
couple of hundred grand, easy. How would you like 
to do it again in a couple of months?” 

“What’s the big idea?” I says. 

“Listen!” butts in the fellow called Doc Neil, push¬ 
ing Kansas City aside. “You guys waste too much 


CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 245 

time. Here’s the big idea—instead of slapping this 
Kid Christopher for a Turkish milk can, let him stay 
the limit. Then in a couple of months you and him 
do your stuff again and this time it can be level. You 
can cut his throat when you get him in there the second 
time, for all we care. Think of the gate you’ll draw 
for this second battle, after this chump has held you 
even once! Now we been to Christopher and his man¬ 
ager and they’re business men, get me? Everything’s 
set there! Don’t be afraid that Kid Christopher will 
try to sneak one over on you; he ain’t got brains enough 
to double-cross nobody. Well, what d’ye say?” 

I got plenty to say, but I held back a bit. I’m 
thinking which one I’ll crash first! “Where do you 
guys come in?” I ask softly. 

“There’s a laugh!” sneers Bernstein to the others. 
Then he turns to me, still sneering. “Where d’ye 
think we come in?” he says. “We make book on the 
first fight and lay two to one you don’t knock Christo¬ 
pher out. You fight a draw— that’s where we come 
in!” 

“And here’s where you go out —you petty-larcency 
crooks!” I says. 

Then the fun begin. Rags must of saw it coming, 
because he’s the first one out of the room and I hear 
him clattering down the stairs as I throw Kansas City 
Yerks after him. Next come Bernstein and then Doc 
Neil, the only one I hit. He went for his gun and I 
knocked him cold while his hand was still en route to 
his hip pocket. So that was that. 

Well, as the day of the fight draws near I put in no 


246 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


little time trying to get Judy to see me defend my 
title. She’s never saw me work, and the mere thought 
of watching a prize fight makes her shudder. “Beastly, 
inhuman, and degrading,” is the way she sizes up the 
manly art of assault and battery, and it seems nothing 
can change her. 

“But they’s plenty of girls goes to box fights, Judy,” 

I says, “and they seem to get quite a kick out of it 
too!” 

“Everyone to their taste,” says Judy scornfully; 
“and don’t say ‘theys,’ Gale; say 'there are / Do you 
know your grammar is growing more atrocious every 
day? And you are getting a hard, sophisticated ex¬ 
pression in your eyes too.” She lays her hand on my 
arm. “Oh, Gale, it’s terrible to have to just sit and 
watch you being coarsened by this constant contact 
with your rough associates of the ring. It’s horrible! 
You were so nice and clean and—and delightfully naive 
when you first came to Drew City. Now-” 

“Now, I’m just a roughneck, I suppose?” I cut in, 
a bit sore. 

“You will certainly be one if you remain in your 
present profession,” she says coldly. 

“Well,” I says, as cold as her, “I don’t guess you 
want to have nothing to do with a roughneck, so I’ll 
take the air!” I blowed out of the office, fit to be tied. 

That afternoon was a eventful one for my sparring 
partners, it was for a fact! 

The next day Nate sees I’m brooding over some¬ 
thing, and being too wise to ask questions he just says 
to knock off training for the day and we’ll go to a show 



CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 


247 


in New York, as he don’t want me too fine for Kid 
Christopher. So we go to a musical comedy called 
“The Girl from Mars.” It is more girls than Mars 
and none of ’em is dressed for a trip to the North Pole, 
that’s a cinch. During the intermission along comes 
the press agent. He tells Nate that after the show 
he wants us to come back on the stage and have me 
pose for a picture with the chorus. He claims this 
will be a great publicity stunt both for me and the show. 
I took another look at this half-dressed chorus and I 
says that’s out, but Nate says it’s all fun and shuts me 
up, telling the press agent we’ll be there with bells on. 

It will be a long time before I forget this novel ex¬ 
perience. In the first place, the twenty minutes I stand 
back there on that stage with about thirty girls crowded 
around me, none of ’em wearing no more than Eve is 
supposed to of wore and all of ’em kidding me, is the 
longest twenty minutes I ever put in in my life! My 
face is so red the reflection must of lit up the whole 
theatre, and when the fellow gets done taking the pic¬ 
tures I run right out the stage entrance into the street. 
In the second place, Judy sees the picture in a New 
York paper a few days later and gives me no chance to 
explain. She figures I need that kind of publicity the 
same way I need another ear, and from then on she 
only speaks to me when she has to. That’s seldom. 

According to my contract with Kid Christopher, we 
both got to finish our training in New York, so a week 
before the brawl I go over to Lefty Mullen’s gym. 
Nate makes a deal with Lefty and for a charge of 
twenty-five cents the public at large is allowed the 


2 48 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


boon of coming to see me work out. Kid Christopher 
has his camp at Red Oliver’s on Forty-seventh Street. 

Well, among the daily visitors to my matinees is a 
girl from this musical comedy called Roma Romaine. 
When I had that simple picture took, she was next to 
me on one side, and I remember she put her arm 
around my neck and that was just one of the many 
things which gets me embarrassed. Anyways, al¬ 
though Roma is a blonde which would win first, 
second, and third prize in a beauty contest anywheres, 
why, I’m blonde-proof and this stuff of her hanging 
around the camp is applesauce to me. In my opinion, 
the female race is divided into two classes—Judy Will- 
cox and girls! So I don’t give Roma a tumble when 
she comes around to see me train. 

Then she commences to phone me at the hotel we’re 
stopping at, can you imagine that ? This gets me very 
much annoyed and it gets Nate suspicious. Nate 
thinks Roma has been hired by them gamblers which 
wanted me to fake my fight with Kid Christopher and 
the whole thing is a plot to get me in some kind of a 
jam so’s I won’t be right for the bout. But I laugh 
at Nate and tell him that stuff only happens in books. 
If I had only knew what was really going to happen, I 
would of finished my training in Egypt! 

This goofy press agent for “The Girl from Mars” 
comes around again to see me and Nate one day, and 
lie’s all excited. He claims he has cooked up another 
publicity stunt which will get me and his show columns 
in the newspapers free of charge. He wants me to 
stand for a story that me and this Roma is engaged! 


CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 249 


We don’t have to get engaged, though we can for all 
he cares, but just faking it will get the results, he says. 
Roma is willing, how about me ? I let forth a whinny 
of rage and I tell him that if he ever puts anything like 
that in the paper about me, why, he had better be in 
Africa when the paper comes out! 

The day before I fight Kid Christopher I nearly 
faint when I pick up the New York “Whirl” and see a 
picture of me and Roma Romaine on the front page. 
She is wearing a bewitching smile and some beads, and 
she’s got her arm around my neck. I am practically 
dum founded, as I never had no pictures took 
with her alone. Looking closer, I see that this photo 
has been cut out of the big picture with me surrounded 
by the chorus of “The Girl from Mars.” But that 
ain’t all. Underneath it says: 

•LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMP 
DENIES KNOCKOUT BY CUPID 

Not Engaged to Roma Romaine of 
“Girl from Mars,” But—! 

Says Six-Second Smith 

Well, the day of the big battle I get the final blow 
which goals me. It’s a short letter from Judy con¬ 
gratulating me on my “conquests in New York!” and 
giving two weeks’ notice that she’s leaving her job 
as our stenographer. They’s eighty-five dollars’ worth 
of ice on each word, and it’s signed “Judith Willcox,” 
instead of the usual “Judy.” I’m what you call panic- 



250 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


stricken, no fooling, because if I lost Judy it would of 
set me back ten years in my battle to be a success and 
made the next ten twice as hard! 

I grab up the phone and manage to get her at our 
office in Drew City by dumb luck. The minute her thrill¬ 
ing voice comes over the wire, I beg her to wait till 
I have knocked Kid Christopher dead and I will fully 
explain all that stuff in the papers about me and Roma 
Romaine. Her answer is to hang up the receiver! 

That is one fearful day for me, I’ll tell the world! 
Nate is busy looking after the arrangements at the 
arena, Spence is in Drew City, and Knockout Kelly is 
down at Brighton Beach with Mary Ballinger. So I 
got nobody to tell my troubles to and nowheres to look 
for sympathy except in the dictionary. I got till ten 
o’clock that night to step into the ring with Kid Chris¬ 
topher, and I duck the training camp early in the after¬ 
noon, wandering around New York like a lost Aire¬ 
dale. 

Along around six o’clock I am standing in the usual 
jam at Forty-second Street and Broadway when some¬ 
body taps me on the arm. I turn around, tickled silly to 
meet anybody I know, and I gaze into the sparkling 
eyes of Roma Romaine. 

“Snap out of it—you look as if you had just lost 
your best friend!” she smiles, shaking my arm. 

“You’re a wonderful guesser,” I says gloomily, 
thinking of Judy. “That’s just what I have done!” 

Lots of guys passing turns for another flash at her. 
She was easy to look at and no mistake. But, Judy 



CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 251 

“I was just going to get something to eat,” I con¬ 
tinued, for want of something to say, “Would you 
wish to come with me?” 

“What could be sweeter?” says Roma, hooking her 
arm in mine. “Let’s go!” 

After I asked her I’m sorry I did, in a way, but my 
main idea in taking her to supper is to talk to her. 
She’s a girl—maybe she can wise me up on what to do 
to square things with Judy. I ask Roma where does 
she want to eat, and she picks out Louvers and I’m in 
this trap and sitting at a table with her before I remem¬ 
ber it’s where Rags Dempster is working. I know if 
he sees me there with a girl, he won’t be able to tell 
Judy fast enough. In those days I was very fluent at 
getting out of the frying pan into the fire! 

Well, that was the first time I had ever been in a 
cabaret in my life and unless I am drugged and 
dragged in it will be my last! The place is crowded 
to the doors and they’s a good hundred dancing. The 
jazz music, the dancers, the revue which is mostly girls 
with less on than the costumes of Roma’s show, the 
French dishes, the famine prices on the bill of fare, 
dozens of sporting men I don’t know recognizing me 
and coming over to our table to wish me luck that 
night in my scuffle with Kid Christopher—all this 
stuff commences to go to my head. Looking around 
this weird place, hardly listening to Roma’s chatter, I 
get a awful kick out of the beautiful women, the soft 
lights, the guys in dress suits, and this and that, but 
still I have a feeling that this would be a good place for 
me to get away from and stay away from! 


252 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Roma gets a bit steamed up over the fact that I am 
not paying her enough attention, and when I call her 
“Judy” a couple of times by mistake she goes right up 
in a blaze. She says she could be sitting there with a 
millionaire instead of me if she wanted to, and while I 
feel like telling her I will trade seats with the first 
millionaire she see£, why, I manage to cool her off. 
She don’t have to go on the stage till half past nine so 
she’s taking her time with her dinner, but I gulp 
everything down because what I crave to do is leave! 

Then who comes along but Rags Dempster, loaded 
to the guards. His first remark is to glance at his own 
Tuxedo and tell me that he’s got a good mind to put 
me out, because everybody is supposed to wear evening 
clothes in Louvers at night. I pay no attention to him 
till he starts to kid Roma. Then I get up and quietly 
take him by the lapel of his coat. I says if he is at our 
table by the time I sit down I will get up again and 
throw him through the big plate-glass window which 
looks out on Broadway. Rags moves along. 

After a while Roma says let’s have a drink. I says 
I don’t drink, and I don’t know no place to get it. 
This makes Roma laugh out loud, and she calls over 
the waiter, ordering a highball as open and above board 
as if Prohibition was April Fool. She says she won’t 
drink alone, so I tell the grinning waiter to bring me a 
plain ginger ale. He brung the ginger ale along in a 
mug instead of a glass, and after I have a couple of 
’em I’m satisfied it’s the best ginger ale I ever tasted. 
I ask the waiter what brand it is, and the waiter grins 
heavy. 


CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 253 


“ ’At’s the real McCoy you got there, brother,” he 
says. “Comes right down from Canada!” 

“I thought it must be imported ginger ale/’ I says. 
“Let’s have some more !” 

Well, I have plenty drinks of this Canadian ginger 
ale, and I commence to feel better every minute. My 
troubles and worries has dropped away like magic and 
to tell you the truth I never forgot that in a few hours 
I am going to step into a ring and defend my title. I 
am having lots of fun and I feel like dancing, which is 
funny, when you take into consideration that I can’t 
dance a stroke and never could or wanted to till that 
night. 

I have no more than got out of my chair, when 
somebody grabs my arm and flops me back into it. 
It’s Nate, and his face is as white as a sheet. 

“You big stiff!” he says to me, “Have you went 
cuckoo ? D’ye know they’s twenty-five thousand people 
out there at the ball park waiting to see you fight Kid 
Christopher in less’n three hours ?” 

“Who’s Kid Chris-Christopher ?” I grins, and I’m 
kind of dizzy in my nut. Roma has slipped away into 
the crowd somewheres. 

“Holy mackerel,” whispers Nate, “you’re lit up like 
a church! D’ye think you can get it through your skull 
’at Rags Dempster and this Jane has framed you? 
They got you soused so’s you either can’t show up to 
fight Kid Christopher, or you’ll be a mark for him if 
you do. You have tossed away your title and throwed 
down your friends by this night’s work, fellah!” 

I don’t seem to be able to get what he’s talking about 


254 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


“Blah!” I says. “I can lick Kid Chris-s-opher with 

“If you can lick Christopher to-night, then I can 
lick that Rocky Mountains!” snarls Nate. “What will 
Mister Brock and Miss Willcox and all them guys in 
Drew City think of you now ? You’ll be about through 
there, after to-night!” 

“Nate,” I says, “I’m awful sleepy! . . 

The next thing I remember I am back of Ajariah 
Stubbs’s soda fountain, and Judy is sitting at the 
counter with Rags. I hit Rags with the ice pick and 
Constabule Watson rushes in to arrest me. We strug¬ 
gle all over the place and then ... I open my eyes 
and there’s Nate, scuffling around a room with me. 
From down below comes the familiar music of a jazz 
band and the sounds of clinking glasses and chatter. 
But the miracle is over in the corner of the room, 
watching me with wide-open eyes which shows signs 
of heavy weeping—Judy! 

“What—how—” I begins, kind of dazed. 

“Shut up and listen to me!” snaps Nate, clapping a 
hat on my head. “I got a taxi cornin’ here, and you 
got forty-five minutes to get into the ring with Kid 
Christopher. You got a bun on downstairs, and I 
couldn’t do nothin’ with you. We tried to get you to 
go to bed and you put four waiters on the floor! So 
I took a long chance and sent for Miss Willcox. 
Spence Brock rushed her up here a hour ago in his 
racin’ car, and he’s at the police station now, squarin’ 
a pinch for speedin’. When Miss Willcox got here 
she talked you into bein’ yourself, and after I give you 



CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 255 


a dozen cold showers she made you lay down. You’ve 
had about a hour’s sleep. Boy, if you ever forget this 
girl for what she done for you to-night, you and me 
is through for life! C’mon, now, let’s go!” 

I choke and try to thank Judy, but she turns away 
from me and walks out the door. Gee, I felt rotten— 
terrible! I’d made a disgrace of myself before Judy, 
took a chance with the money of my friends in Drew 
City which trusted me, and showed a weakness which 
I’d be the first to sneer at in the next guy. Right then 
and there I made myself certain promises regarding 
booze, and I have kept them promises to this day. All 
the ways to the ball park I can only think of Judy’s 
hurt face and wet eyes. Well, I’ll never do nothing 
to make her cry again, so help me! 

The mob is dying with impatience, and they set up a 
cheer which shook the stars when I climb through the 
ropes that night, a half hour late. I am far from clear¬ 
headed, but I’m in there to put up the battle of my life 
—win or lose! Kid Christopher is a tough looking 
baby with “I can take it!” wrote all over him. I watch 
him with about the same kind of feelings Abel must 
of had while waiting for Cain to leave his corner. I 
am just aquiver with nerves, but the papers says after 
the fight I was “cool, calm, and workmanlike” from the 
minute I entered the ring. 

Kid Christopher has evidently been tipped about the 
shape I’m in, because he goes right after my body, 
leaving my jaw for future reference. He could hit, 
too, don’t think he couldn’t! He pounds me heavy in 
the first round, and I don’t seem able to keep him away. 


256 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


His best punch is a left hook to the stomach, and at 
the end of round one my stomach is a raw red and 
pumping like a bellows. The papers says I only landed 
one clean blow in that frame—a stiff right swing to 
the head before the bell. I don’t even remember that 
one, but I remember the customers razzed me and 
holler for me to fight when I run to my corner and Nate 
emptied the water bucket on me. 

I took plenty of punishment in the second round, 
my first dose of booze having ruined my timing and 
generalship. Getting more confidence every minute, 
Kid Christopher shifts his attack to my head, and a 
sizzling straight left opens a old cut over one of my 
eyes, drenching me with gore. Then Christopher sails 
into me in earnest, ripping both hands to the wind but 
my mind’s beginning to clear and I drove him to a 
clinch with two torrid rights to the jaw which brought 
the mob to its feet, howling. While we’re clinched, 
Christopher whispers to me that my trunks is slipping 
off. A old trick, but I fell for it! I drop my hands 
to my belt mechanically, and quick as a flash Chris¬ 
topher uppercut me with his right and I hit the mat with 
a thud. 

I watched the referee’s rising and falling arm, not 
being able to hear the count over the roar of the crowd, 
and at “eight” I got up and back-pedalled till my 
dizzy head cleared. Then Christopher caught me flush 
on the mouth with a right hook, and I turn my head 
to drop a tooth which is of no further value to me. 
He hit me pretty low twice in this round, and Nate 
bellered “Foul!” But the referee warns Nate to keep 


CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 257 

quiet and says nothing at all to Kid Christopher. The 
gong finds us in a clinch, with Christopher, one arm 
free, punishing me about the body. He’s a good boy, 
this Christopher, and I’d liked to of fought him again. 

“Come on and fight, you cake eater!” snarls Kid 
Christopher, coming out for the third round with 
visions of the light-heavyweight title clouding his judg¬ 
ment. I spun him halfways around with a right to the 
heart and stung him with lefts and rights to the head 
till he’s glad to clinch. On the break, Christopher plants 
a hard left to my body, and I counter with another 
right to the heart which hurt. I seen it in his face. 

Then he begins a rally and we stand toe to toe and 
slug till outside the ring is a maniac’s convention! The 
blood from the cut over my eye bothers me considerably. 
Although Nate had sewed it up between the second 
and third round, Christopher opens it again during 
this slugfest in mid-ring. 

At the bell I am getting up from a clean knockdown 
without waiting for the count. I’m so groggy I start 
for Christopher’s corner by mistake and the crowd 
roars when the referee has to steer me to my own. 
Unless I got a lucky break, it looked like my brand- 
new title was going to change hands right in that ring! 

The break come between the third and fourth rounds 
when Nate, desperately sponging me off while Kayo 
Kelly holds the ammonia under my nose, tells me that 
Judy is out in front! I sit up so straight I knock the 
ammonia bottle out of Kayo Kelly’s hand. I thought 
Judy had went right back to Drew City when I left 
Louvers for the ring, and here she’s watching me— 

IT 


258 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


watching me take a proper pasting in the first fight 
she’s ever saw me in, and, for all I know, the last fight 
she’ll ever go to again! Well, I guess that was what 
I needed—something like that to sweep the last re¬ 
maining cobwebs from my brain, snap me into it, and 
make me realize that no matter what had happened, 
I’m still a champion! 

I come out for round four, loaded for bear. Chris¬ 
topher neatly blocks a wicked left hook to the jaw and 
stung me with a right to the nose. A right swing sends 
him into a clinch, but I push him off, measure him with 
a left to the mouth, and as he danced away under in¬ 
structions from his corner, I sunk a right in his mid¬ 
section which didn’t do him a bit of good. He then triei 
hooking his right, but I beat him to the punch with a 
perfectly timed swing which dropped him on his 
haunches in his own corner. He leaned on one elbow 
and gazed goofily at the yelling crowd till the referee 
reached “nine.” Then he got up, shaky and all at 
sea. 

I left his left lead go over my shoulder, stepped in 
close, and hooked my right flush to his jaw with every¬ 
thing I had in stock behind the punch. “That’s the 
business!” I hear Nate howl as Kid Christopher 
crashes to the canvas, face down. His legs twitches a 
couple of times before he straightens out flat, and he 
never moved again till he was counted out and I help 
carry him to his corner. 

Nate and me fought our ways through the cheering 
crowd to the main box office, where Spence has come 
around with Judy. She’s a little pale, but her eyes is 


CHRISTOPHER OF COLUMBUS 259 

like a couple of sapphires, only with more sparkle, and 
a deeper blue. 

“Are you hurt, Gale?” she says anxiously, laying her 
little hand on my arm. 

“No,” I says. “That was just a work-out! Listen 
—even a murderer gets a trial, Judy. Will you let me 
take you home and explain matters?” 

“We can pay them people in Drew City a good two 
to one for their money,” says Nate, looking up from 
the box-office figures, “and still have a bank roll left 
which no greyhound in the world could jump over!” 

“Oh, Pm so glad, Gale,” says Judy. “I knew you’d 
make good! And you fought such a splendid, courage¬ 
ous, uphill fight against that beast! I-” 

“Kid Christopher ain’t no beast, Judy,” I says. 
“He’s a stiff puncher and a nice fellow, but to-night 
wasn’t his night. Maybe it ain’t my night either! 
Judy, if you give me the air, I’m going to leave Drew 
City and-” 

“I think we had better get started,” butts in Judy— 
and when she blushes she’d drive you crazy. “It’ll take 
us an hour to drive there, you know.” 

“It’ll take us two hours to-night, Judy,” I says. “I 
got a lot to say.” 

It took us four hours! 




ROUND NINE 


A GRIM FAIRY TALE 

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown!” says 
Shakespeare to whom it may concern, and that’s a re¬ 
mark which could of been written around me! As 
king of the light-heavyweight box fighters, I only 
wore a crown a brief while, still in that time I had 
some adventures which convinces me that kings, like 
the girl in the song, is more to be pitied than scorned. 

The success I had in personally conducting that 
scuffle with Kid Christopher,—both financially and 
fisticuffily—sells me the idea that I’m the Indian’s 
feathers as a fight promoter, and I can see no good 
reason why I shouldn’t keep on developing my brains 
by planning and staging my own fights, instead of 
letting some outsider do it and walk away with the 
bulk of the gate. I take the cuffing, why shouldn’t I 
take the doubloons, too? Is the way I looked at it. 
So my next step is to pester Gunner Slade, world’s 
light-heavyweight champion, for a bout. His night¬ 
marish demands for purses is still making the pro¬ 
moters laugh him off, so now I cable him a guarantee 
of one hundred thousand dollars, win, lose, or draw, 
if he’ll come over and take his pasting like a gentleman 
and a scholar. This leaves the Gunner bankrupt of 

260 


A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


261 


alibis and his manager peevishly shoots back a accept¬ 
ance, collect. 

Well, the first organized protest I bump into after 
lining up Gunner Slade is Judy. While Judy saw me 
reduce Kid Christopher to kindling, she also saw the 
Kid punch me from pillar to post and I took some 
cruel and unusual punishment before I snapped out of 
it and flattened him. As a result, Judy says there is 
nothing in the world could get her to see a prize fight 
again. We are sitting in our office when the cable 
from Gunner Slade’s manager arrives, and while it 
fills me with joy it don’t seem to thrill Judy no more 
than it would thrill a letter carrier to take a long walk 
on his day ofif. In fact, she seems sore about it. 

“You promised me—and yourself—you would give 
up fighting when you became a champion,” she says, 
plenty reproachful. “And here you are still planning 
matches. Doesn’t your word mean anything, Gale?” 

This makes me the bit uncomfortable. It certainly 
ain’t my play to do anything which will make this 
wonderful girl off me. All I had then was her 
friendship, which wasn’t one-tenth of what I’d like to 
of had. Still, should I ever of lost even that, why, 
I’d been a living ruin, no fooling! So I step over to 
her desk, trying to keep my mind on the matter at 
hand and not on what a beautiful object to look at 
she is l 

“Judy,” I says, “I did promise you I’d quit the ring 
and I promised myself, too! That ain’t a promise so 
easy to keep, because, Judy—I like boxing! No matter 
if I have firmly resolved to get out of the game—a 


262 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


resolution I’m not going to break—I can’t help getting 
a kick out of a fair and square two-handed fight—it 
must be in my blood!” 

“Oh, Gale,” sighs Judy, shaking her head. “I knew 
it—I felt it! The false glamor of that beastly pro¬ 
fession has fascinated you—gripped you like some 
horrid drug!-” 

“Wait a minute, Judy,” I cut in. “I’m going to 
keep my promise and check out of the ring, on that 
you can gamble. But I set a certain goal for myself 
in this man’s game and I ain’t reached it yet. Would 
you want me to be a quitter, Judy?” 

“Gale,” smiles Judy, “I cannot imagine the word 
'quit’ in connection with you—whether the cause be 
good or bad, once started you’ll go through to the 
finish! But I do not follow your argument. You’re 
champion now and what is there in anything higher 
than champion?” 

“I’m only American champ, not champion of the 
world—and that’s the mark I’m shooting at!” I says. 
“To write that title after my name I’ve got to stop 
Gunner Slade, and now that he’s made up his mind to 
sail from dear old England, all I can say is that he’s 
coming a long ways to get knocked stiff! Another 
thing, I’m promoting this fight myself, and look at the 
experience that will give me for future use in looking 
after business details. Didn’t I show the civilized 
world I could do something else besides box by the 
way I put on my scrap with Kid Christopher?” 

“Indeed you did, Gale, and made us all proud of 
you!” says Judy. “But that simply proves my con- 



A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


263 


tention that you would be equally successful in pro¬ 
moting some other bigger—and cleaner business.” 

“Judy,” I says, “what business do I know anything 
about ?” 

That question’s a horse from another race track 
and it slows her up for a instant. But then she’s one 
more person which don’t give up easy. 

“Oh you’d find something, if you really tried,” she 
says. “You didn’t know anything about the boxing 
business until you went into it, did you?” 

“No, I didn’t,” I admit. “But I was born with a 
little natural talent for it in the shape of shoulders and 
hands and the ability to take a cuffing without running 
crying to my parents. That wouldn’t do me no good 
in the busy marts of trade, Judy—the first banker or 
merchant prince I smacked, for instance, would have 
me pinched. Let’s let it go this way-—if Gunner 
Slade puts me out I’ll call it a day and step down from 
the ring right after that battle, because if I can’t take 
this fellow I’ll have no kick coming. I’ll have had the 
big chance and failed to deliver. Unless I go broke pro¬ 
moting the fight, I’ll have quite a few dimes left and 
I’ll go into conference with you so we can pick a busi¬ 
ness for me to plung right into, letting the box-fight 
game run for the end book! But let me have this 
crack at the world’s title, Judy. I’ve gone too far in 
the game to quit before I’ve had my try at the big 
prize. D’ye know I sit for almost a hour last night 
looking at Gunner Slade’s picture in ‘The Police 
Gazette’ ? Pm in a trance, no fooling! D’ye think it 
was the Gunner’s battle-scarred face which hypnotized 


264 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


me? No! It was what it says under his picture— 
'Champion of the World!’ Judy, with that as my 
signature I could die happy. Champion of the world 
at boxing, brick-laying, street digging, anything, but— 
champion!” 

Judy just sits there staring at me with her lips 
parted, them heart-stimulating eyes the bit misty and 
a kind of far-away and long-ago expression in ’em. I 
gaze at her and do a piece of wishing which would 
make Aladdin’s requests look like the lamp was wasted 
on him. I get a grip on myself quick, you can bet, 
because I’m afraid another minute of this pause and 
I’ll be kissing her sure and she’ll toss me right out of 
her sweet young life! I figure she’s weakening on the 
boxing argument, however, so I change the subject 
with break-your-neck speed. 

“Well, I’m certainly a sap for the ages, Judy,” I 
says suddenly. “I got a real surprise for you and I 
come near walking out without saying a word about 
it! Speaking of going in business, as people will, me 
and Nate and Kayo Kelly has already took a flyer in 
something apart from the ring. Laugh that off!” 

She comes back to Mother Earth with a start and 
claps her hands together, plenty excited. “Splendid!” 
she says. “What is it, Gale?” 

“We’ve pooled fifty thousand cash between us,” I 
explain. “And we’re going to buy a lot here in Drew 
City. Right on top of that lot we’re going to throw to¬ 
gether a little small office building with a moving- 
picture theatre downstairs. That gives us a ace in the 
hole should anything happen to any one or all of us in 


A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


265 


the science we’re in now. So, as a matter of fact, I’ll be 
50 per cent business man and 50 per cent box fighter, 
till the time comes when I’m 100 per cent business man 
and only go to a fight club as a witness.” 

“Which I hope will be soon!” says Judy, now all 
smiles again. “I certainly think it’s wonderful that 
you’ve actually gone into business, Gale, even if you’re 
only going to devote part of your time to it. I’ll wager 
you’ll soon get so interested in making your new ven¬ 
ture a success that you’ll give up boxing without 
a qualm. This is the best news I’ve heard in 
many a day. Congratulations and the best of luck to 
you!” 

“Much obliged, Judy,” I says. “And now I 
wonder if you’d do me a favor?” 

“I’ll do anything for you that I can, Gale,” she tells 
me. “You know that.” 

“Well,” I says, “when we get our movie theatre all 
set, would you mind—eh—would you mind christen¬ 
ing it for us for good luck?” 

“Why, I’ll be delighted!” she tells me—and looks it. 
“Let’s think up a real attractive name—one that will 
be striking and descriptive of the theatre, too. Let’s 
see, your theatre should be a delight to the eye, physi¬ 
cally, and a delight to the soul, spiritually. Now I 
wonder just what name would describe that?” 

“I got the name which fits that description like the 
skin fits a olive,” I says. “We’ll call the theatre ‘The 
Judith’!” 

Judy gasps and her face gets redder than a rose, 
only it looks much prettier. 


266 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


“Oh, Gale,” she stammers, “I—why—you can't call 

it that —You’re joking—I-” 

“I ain’t joking,” I says, firmly, “and that’s what 
we’re going to call it. I don’t see why you should 
holler about me naming my theatre after you, if you 
really like me as a friend—or maybe that’s the bunk?” 

“I do like you, Gale,” says Judy, “but naming your 
theatre The Judith would be too—obvious. Drew City 
is small and narrow in many ways, Gale, and people 
would misunderstand. There’d be talking that would 
embarrass both of us—linking our names, you know, 
and-” 

“If you think any talk linking our names would em¬ 
barrass me, Judy,” I butt in, “you’re muchly mistaken. 
It would tickle me so silly, I’d put the gossips on my 

payroll! Say—if our names was only-” 

I see the crimson flooding her face again and there’s 
a light in her eye which I don’t know for sure is 
pleasure or rage. Not knowing for sure, I beat it. 

Well, for the next three or four weeks I’m busier 
than a armless sailor furling a sail in a storm. Putting 
through the deal for our lot and arranging the details 
of my fight with Gunner Slade certainly keeps me 
from yawning myself to death and that’s a fact. Then 
one day I’m passing the Dempster & Company carpet 
factory and I get the shock of my young life when I 
see Rags coming out of his father’s office. As his old 
man had chased him out of town I was naturally the 
bit surprised to see him back in Drew City again. 

“Hello, Galen,” he calls out, like we was old pals. 
“How’s Judy?” 





A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


267 


I don’t give him a tumble, but just keep on walk¬ 
ing, though him merely mentioning Judy gets me red¬ 
headed. Still, Rags is determined to get a rise out of 
me. I guess he figured he was pretty safe on the main 
street in broad daylight, with pedestrians conspicuous 
by their presence. So he stands on the steps of the 
office and sneers. 

“Afraid to answer, eh? That’s right, you’d better 
keep your place. We’ll see whether or not this town 
will stand for a drunken pugilist running a theatre 
here!” 

Warn—I’m fit to be tied! I suppose I should of 
smacked him down then and there and be done with it, 
but you want to remember that fighting is my business 
and it ain’t Rags’s by no means. In other words, I 
can step and he can’t so to my mind clouting him 
would be about as brave a stunt for me as removing 
a lolly-pop from a young infant. But I can’t get over 
him being back in Drew City and I’m bothered about 
him knowing I’m going to open this theatre, so I 
walk away, wondering how in the Kansas City did he 
ever find that out? A few days later I got the dope 
on that part of it and it hit me like a smack on the chin! 

During the week I hear that Rags’s old man has gave 
him another chance and took him back to work in the 
office of his carpet factory. Immediately, his old gang 
forgives and forgets, too, because you know yourself 
a million dollars will get attention anywheres no 
matter where you roam and a million is what Rags’s 
father is supposed to have. I seen Rags a couple of 
times more and once he actually tries to make 


268 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


“friends” with me. You know what I told him. He 
also calls Judy up either eighteen or twenty-seven 
times, but I’m glad to state that Rags could of got 
the wrong number as far as he was concerned. 

Well, with Rags bounding around in Drew City I 
know it won’t be long before he’ll start after my scalp 
again—and it wasn’t long! His first number was to 
ruin me at the Drew City Country Club, where I had 
the chance of a lifetime to step out with the class of 
the town, assisted by Spence Brock. That’s a thing I 
was crazy to do, as the farther away I could get from 
the atmosphere of the prize ring when I wasn’t actually 
in it and the higher I could climb on the social ladder 
in Drew City, the more chance I had of rubbing off 
the rough edges which I knew would have to be rubbed 
off if I was going to get anywheres. Anyways, 
Spence had been after me for a long while to come out 
to the country club with him and try my hand at this 
golf thing. I’d been putting the event off, because I 
always thought that in order to properly appreciate 
the mysteries of cross-country billiards you had to be 
sixty, a bank president, bald-headed, fat, and a little 
bit goofy. 

However, I would do anything for Spence, so one 
day we gaily set forth for the courts, or links, or grid¬ 
iron, or whatever it is you smack them little white 
pills around on. When we get out to the country club 
right off the reel we run into Rags. He’s out on what 
you call the first tea, practicing shots. The minute he 
sees me, he ties in. 

“What’s the big idea?” he says to Spence, pointing 


A GRIM FAIRY TALE 269 

to me with his club like I’m something the cat dragged 
in. I commence to get steamed myself. 

“The idea is that Galen and myself are about to play 
a round of golf,” says Spence coldly. “Any objec¬ 
tions ?” 

Rags gives a whinny of rage. “I should say I have 
an objection!” he snaps, his piggy little eyes glaring 
at me, though he speaks to Spence. “I shall see that 
the house committee is immediately notified of this 
fellow’s presence here. This is a gentleman’s club, 
not a training camp for prize fighters!” 

Before Spence can play a card. I climbed into the 
breech. 

“Be yourself, you false alarm!” # I says, stepping 
over to Rags and returning his glare with usurious 
interest. “Just because I been letting you push me 
around all this time without giving you a smacking, 
don’t get the idea that things is going on this way for¬ 
ever. Some day I will take a wallop at you and every¬ 
thing I owe you for all you’ve ever did to me will be 
in that one punch!” 

“And—eh—he’s light-heavyweight champion, 

Rags,” remarks Spence, with a grin. 

Rags looks thoughtful indeed and moves away, 
growling under his breath like all hounds does. 

Well, me and Spence ties into this golf. Spence 
puts his ball on the tea, takes a couple of practice 
swings, and then—blam! He hits what would of been 
at least one home run in any ball park in the world. 
I’m up next. I don’t want to show off or nothing 
like that, but as I step up to the tea I can’t help think- 


270 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


ing to myself that what IT 1 do to this little pock¬ 
marked apple will be murderous. I took aim at a tree 
about a mile away, set myself, and—flooey. I don’t 
even get a foul! Once again I try my luck and mis9 
from here to Madrid. Spence laughs. Different here! 
Well, to make a long game short, on the eighth swing 
I finally connected with everything I got and the ball 
rolled about four feet from the tea. Then I got 
interested! 

A half hour later I am playing this game like not 
only my life, but the future of the world depended on 
each stroke. And, listen—golf is considerable pastime, 
don’t think it ain’t. Anybody which calls it a old 
man’s game is dizzy! It’s a wow of a sport and 
wonderful as a training stunt for a boxer. Besides 
great exercise, if you put your heart and soul in it 
you’ll get back cool-headedness, patience, steady 
nerves, and determination, just what you need to get 
to the top in the fight game—or in any game, for that 
matter! 

When we come to what they call the fourth hole I 
have run up the praiseworthy score of twenty-five 
strokes for the first three, while the best Spence can 
do is fourteen strokes and he’s been playing the game 
for years. However, I’m first to bat at cavity number 
four and by dumb luck I cracked the pill on the nose 
with my first swing. As I look up to see have I hit 
safe or not, I notice Rags down near the flag watching 
me. I ain’t bothered about Rags, though, I’m think¬ 
ing what a swell time I’m going to have capering 
around this course every day, mixing with the blue 



A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


271 


bloods of Drew City and calling millionaires by nick¬ 
names. I’m even going to buy the golfing uniform 
and a container full of clubs and some caddies to put 
the tea in. Oh, I’m in right, what I mean, when out 
of the clear sky Rags winds up my happy little dream. 

The ball I hit sails through the air at a bad angle 
and heads for the State road which runs past the 
course. There’s a swell limousine buzzing along the 
road and me and Spence holds our breath for fear my 
ball will hit it. Rags is watching it, too. But my 
ball drops in a bunker hill this side of the road and 
I’m just letting go a sigh of honest relief when I see 
Rags stoop down, pick something up off the ground 
at his feet and pitch it at that limousine, breaking one 
of the windows! Then he takes it on the run as the 
car grinds to a stop. 

I come running up to the road for my ball with 
my club in my hand and I’m looking for the pellet 
when the bozo from the limousine reaches me. He’s 
fat and bald-headed and his face is as red as a throw¬ 
ing tomato. Honest, he’s so mad he ain’t fit to be at 
large! He’s got a golf ball in his hand and he holds 
it up, waving it at the broken window of his limousine. 
The next point of interest he shows me with his 
quivering finger is a lump as big as Manhattan on the 
side of his noble forehead. I bet if he’d had a gun 
he’d of cooked me sure! 

This is a situation which calls for some fast and 
spellbinding talking, yet what mind I got with me is 
occupied in realizing what Rags has just did and 
awarding him the china sledge hammer for brain 


. 2J2 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


work. This baby seen me hit that ball of the course 
and he immediately hurls his own ball through the 
limousine window, thus making it look like I drove it 
through! And now here I am with my club in my hand 
looking for the ball and nobody else in sight. Rags 
has gone away from there and Spence is far back at 
the tea, not knowing what it’s all about. 

Well, Td have to be more of a dumbell than I am 
not to see at a glance that the real story of this accident 
would sound so silly to the enraged victim that he’d 
probably take my club away from me and brain me! 
I wouldn’t even believe my own story myself. I’m 
covered from head to foot with circumstantial evi¬ 
dence and that’s all there is to it. So without mention¬ 
ing Rags at all I merely commence to stutter a 
apology, when the old jazzbo shuts me off kind of 
angrily. Then comes the toughest blow of all. This 
guy is chairman of the house committee, and when he 
finds out I ain’t even a member of the country club 
he rules me off his golf court for life. In fact, he 
says if he ever catches me scampering around the 
greens again he’ll have me hung for trespassing! 

I think if I had come across Rags when me and 
Spence is wending our ways home from the country 
club that day I would of made him the plot of a coro¬ 
ner’s inquest and that’s a fact! I even took a long cut 
home so’s not to run into him, as a murder wouldn’t 
fit into my program right then by no means. But 
after I have talked to Nate Shapiro that night I wanted 
to go out looking for Rags and I ain’t even got one 
qualm left about manslaughter. 


A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


273 


My two business partners, Nate and Knockout 
Kelly, is sitting gloomily in the parlor when I come in. 
“Ah, the master mind has arrived!” says Nate, sar¬ 
castically. “Well, I got one for you to try on your 
piano—the deal for the lot has fell through and our 
movie theatre is canceled!” 

“Laugh tJmt off!” adds Kayo Kelly. 

“Boys,” I says, “I am in no mood for horseplay— 
get me? I have just got a tough break and if you 
start a kidding bee with me I’ll lay you both like a 
carpet!” 

“You think you just got a tough break,” says Nate 
grimly. “But you’re mistaken. We got the tough 
break right here for you. Listen—I go up to ’at real- 
estate agent with the jack to take over our lot to-day 
and they’s nothin’ stirrin’! No can do. Somebody’s 
put in a rap for us and the owner ain’t goin’ through 
with the sale!” 

“Why?” I asks, mystified to death. 

“’At’s what I asked the agent,” says Nate. “And 
this tomato tells me the owner didn’t know he was 
doin’ business with a combination of box fighters, and 
now that he does, why, he don’t think me and you 
and Kayo here should be encouraged to stay in Drew 
City, much less open a business in this slab. Can you 
tie that?” 

“I went right up in flames!” says Knockout Kelly. 
And I can imagine he did. 

“Well, Kayo,” I says, “I hope you kept your head 
and didn’t begin swearing and cursing in that 
agent’s office, because that’s just the thing would make 

18 


274 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


it harder for me to straighten this out. We don’t 
want ’em to think we’re rough and tough, even if we 
are boxers. A gentlemanly answer would of prob¬ 
ably swung the tide in our favor.” 

‘‘Everything’s O. K. then,” grins Kayo. “I didn’t 
do a particle of swearin’ or cussin’—by a odd coinci¬ 
dence, I simply stepped in and knocked that wise¬ 
crackin’ agent for a horse radish!” 

I just thro wed up my hands and sunk in a chair. 
“Who is this owner?” I says finally. “Maybe I can 
make him see things in a different light.” 

“Sure!” sneers Nate. “And maybe Niagara Falls 
is composed of lemonade. The owner is Rags Demp¬ 
ster’s old man!” 

Hot tamale! 

Well, we were up against a serious proposition and 
no mistake. Not having the faintest of faint ideas 
that there would be any trouble about the lot since 
we already had a option on it, we have went ahead 
with builders, architects, decorators, contractors, and 
the etc., and you know all that costs important money. 
If the deal for this lot fell through then, why, we stood 
to lose a fortune! 

But this is one time I made Mr. Rags Dempster like 
it! I didn’t bother going to his father. I knew that 
would be the same as appealing to the sense of fair 
play in a famished lion outside a sheep corral. I went 
right straight to my guardian angel, Mr. John T. 
Brock, and the best street in the burg ain’t called 
“Brock Avenue” for nothing! By the time I got 
done telling Mr. Brock what’s what he’s as burnt up 


A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


275 


as I am. By way of the phone he calls a special meet¬ 
ing of the chamber of commerce for the next morning. 
He’s just president of it, that’s all. Then he pats me 
on the back, tells me if I let Gunner Slade stay six 
rounds he’ll be ashamed of me, and says to show up 
at the chamber of commerce the following morning 
with my two partners and the money for the lot. 

Well, the chamber of commerce meeting was a 
movie. Besides a lot of influential citizens which I 
have only a nodding acquaintance with and the nodding 

i 

is all on my part, there was Lem Garfield, Judge Tuck- 
erman, and Ajariah Stubbs, all with me to the limit 
in anything at that time. The rest of the heavy busi¬ 
ness men frowns at me and my partners, but they re¬ 
gard Mr. Brock like he was President Harding. All 
except old man Dempster, which hurls us a angry glare 
to split among us. 

Mr. Brock wastes no time on preliminaries, but gets 
right down to business when the meeting is called to 
order. 

“What’s all this nonsense I heard about driving this 
young man out of town?” he bellers in his bull ele¬ 
phant’s voice, looking straight at old man Dempster. 
“A detriment to Drew City, is he? Why, you fools, 
Gale Galen is the biggest thing this town has ever pro¬ 
duced! He’s put Drew City on the map and if you 
meddling idiots will let him alone he’ll keep it there. 
Do you know who he is ? A prize fighter, I suppose 
some doddering imbecile will say. Well, he’s not just 
a prize fighter, any more than U. S. Grant was just a 
general! He’s American light-heavyweight champion 


276 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


and I’ll wager anything from one penny to one million 
he’ll soon be champion of the world. Do you know 
what that means ? It means columns and columns of 
priceless publicity for Drew City. Every time his 
name is printed in a newspaper in the United States, 
Drew City is mentioned beside it. People who never 
heard of our town and never would hear of it unless 
it was destroyed by an earthquake, now know that 
Drew City is the home of a champion and everybody 
is interested in a champion of anything!” 

“But—” begins old man Dempster. 

“Silence!” yells about a dozen voices. 

“Not only that,” goes on Mr. Brock—“not only 
that, this boy has set an example during his residence 
here that should be held up as a model for the youth 
of this town! Honest, ambitious, courageous, intel¬ 
ligent, and clean living, fighting for an education de¬ 
nied him through poverty. He came here penniless, 
unknown, an object of suspicion. Look at him now! 
Why, he could buy and sell half of you hypocrites in 
this room! If he wants to go into business here, he 
should be encouraged and assisted, and if this young 
man is refused the deed to a certain lot I understand he 
holds an option on and is now ready to purchase as a 
site for his proposed enterprise, I will resign from 
this board right now!” He bangs on the desk and 
glares around the room. “Well, come on, I’m ready 
to hear arguments!” he bellers. 

Well, there was plenty arguments—but they’re all 
in my favor. Them babies don’t wish none of Mr. 
Brock’s game, that’s a cinch! Inside half a hour old 


A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


277 


man Dempster has sold us his lot without further ado. 

The building- of our movie theatre proceeds with the 
greatest of speed and a couple of months later Gunner 
Slade arrives in America, so I got to go in training 
for him. The sport writers look Mr. Slade over and 
then go back to their papers and open up with their 
typewriters on him. He looks big and husky, they say, 
but then so does a plate of corned beef and cabbage 
and they think in justice to the American fight fans he 
should give them a line on his wares before going up 
against the best fighter of his class in the country. 
The Gunner and his manager stalls and stalls, but 
finally they got to talk turkey. So they take on Battling 
Hicks over in Jersey City to give the fans a drummer's 
sample of what they got in stock. I went over with 
Nate and Knockout Kelly for a eyeful myself. 

Battling Hicks was a tough boy in his day, but his 
day was all over. While he was still a fairly clever 
boxer, he couldn’t punch his way out of a paper bag. I 
stopped him myself some time ago with a couple of 
smacks on the chin. He was scared stiff by the Gunner's 
rep and it turned out to be the sorriest kind of a set-up, 
only lasting two frames because Gunner Slade was 
nervous and wild. I came away from that fight more 
than ever convinced that I held the light-heavyweight 
championship of the world in my right-hand glove 1 

Well, the hard-boiled sport writers failed to wax 
hysterical over Gunner Slade’s showing, in spite of 
the fact that he stopped his man in two rounds. They 
commence to predict that I’ll murder him, till I could 
of murdered them for what they’re doing to the gate 


27 B 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


receipts of my coming brawl with the Englishman. I 
guess the Gunner must be quite a newspaper reader, 
because after seeing what the reporters thought of 
him he demands more time to get in better shape for 
me and there’s nothing for me to do but give him what 
he wants. So in that way the time goes by till finally 
our three-story building is built and the movie theatre 
on the ground floor is solemnly christened the “J u dhE” 
by Judy herself. Her objections vanished like magic 
when she seen what a cute little trap it was. 

Then me, Judy, Spence, Nate, and Kayo Kelly hold 
a conference for the purposes of doping out some stunt 
which will open our theatre with a bang. Everybody 
is called upon to trot out a publicity scheme—a trick 
which will pack the customers in on the opening night. 
Knockout Kelly coughs and says he has a wow of a 
idea and there’s no use looking no further for some¬ 
thing which will jam the place to the mortgage. I 
give Kayo permission to take the floor and expose 
his scheme and Kayo says its very simple—just make 
Mary Ballinger cashier of the theatre and then try to 
keep the mob away from the box office! 

When the laugh has died away the motion is voted 
on and Mary gets the job. She’s a swell looker at that, 
and thinks Kayo, which is not no swell looker but is 
certainly a handsome puncher, is a better man than 
even Gunga Din. But merely putting Mary in the box 
office as a decoy ain’t just what we’re after, so I order 
more thinking and finally it was no less than me which 
gets the fatal idea. That is, to open our theatre with 
a little amateur playlet, put on by local talent. That’s 


A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


279 : 

sure to bring in at least the friends and relatives of 
the young actors, and if we give ’em a good show we’ll 
make ’em permanent customers and boosters. 

Judy and Spence thinks my idea is the peacock’s 
knuckles, and even them two ten-minute eggs, Nate 
and Kayo, gives grudging approval. I leave the de¬ 
tails to Spence and Judy, as I have got to ready up for 
my own little playlet with Gunner Slade in which I 
hope to play the leading part and I need plenty re¬ 
hearsals for that drama myself! 

Well, when Spence pulls the amateur theatrical thing 
on his girl and boy friends they go double cuckoo over 
it and there’s so many applications that we could of put 
on Custer’s Last Stand and had sixteen more princi¬ 
pals than there was in the battle itself. Strangely 
enough, all the boys want to play the hero and all the 
girls is strongly in favor of playing the heroine and 
when I see the trouble Spence and Judy is having try¬ 
ing to keep old friendships and still put the play on, 
why, I’m glad I’m merely a silent partner in the pro¬ 
duction. Spence solves the difficulty by sending to New 
York for a professional director which plays no favor¬ 
ites but picks out for the parts the ones he thinks best 
suited for ’em and advises the others to buy tickets. 

If I had a dollar for every time I have wished I 
never thought of opening my theatre with a amateur 
show, there’s no sixty banks in the world would be big 
enough to hold my jack. Battling Luck delivered three 
punches at me as the net result of that play which cost 
me a young fortune and come mighty near costing me 
Judy, the world’s championship, and my life! 


28 o 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Punch number one is when the director picks out 
Rags and Judy for the leading parts in the play. That 
floored me, but I got up. Punch number two is when 
Judy comes into dinner from rehearsal one night, all 
excited and acting like she’s just got word that a rich 
uncle died and left her everything but Baffin’s Bay. 

I ask her what seems to be the trouble, and after stall¬ 
ing a bit she finally says the director has told her she’s 
a born actress and is throwing herself away by staying 
in Drew City. What she should do, this parsnip tells 
her, is to go to New York, where he’s satisfied her 
talent will get her attention. I leave it to you what 
this done to me!” 

“The big stiff!” I says. “I suppose he likewise 
asked you could he call on you some night and give 
you more details about going on the stage in New 
York, hey? I’ll go around there and slap him silly!” 

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” says Judy, flaring 
right up. “Mr. De Haven is a perfect gentleman and 
I think it’s wonderful he should take such an interest 
m me! 

“Ain’t we got fun?” I says, fit to bite nails. 
“What did you tell him when he invited you to bust 
into the show business ?” 

“Don’t cross-examine me, Gale,” says Judy. “I said 
I would think it over. I certainly don’t intend to be a 
stenographer all my life !” 

“I don’t expect you to be one all your life, either, 
Judy.” I says. “But please don’t go on the stage. 
That would just about murder me, no fooling! Why, 
the mere thought of you being a actress is-” 



A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


281 

“Just a moment!” Judy butts in, giving me a odd 
look. “Do you think it any worse for me to become 
an actress than it is for you to be a pugilist? I don’t!” 

I’m against the ropes for a fact and before I get a 
chance to box my ways out, in comes Mrs. Willcox to 
tell Judy Mr. De Haven would like to speak to her on 
the phone. Warn! That adds the finishing touch and 
I bust out of the house without no dinner or nothing. 
What a fine break I got all of a sudden! Rags Demp¬ 
ster playing the hero to Judy’s heroine in a play Fm 
paying for, and the director, whose salary I’m also 
putting up, is stuck on Judy, too. If I had run into 
both of them birds when I left the house that night 
there would of been two of the niftiest killings you ever 
seen in your life! 

Now for punch number three, the one which goaled 
me. The night our theatre opens you couldn’t of got 
inside after seven-thirty p. m. if you had been a thin 
fly. In fact, me and Nate and Kayo Kelly has got to 
stand up in the back, as they seems to be two people 
in each seat. We hire Eddie Granger’s Vesper A. C. 
brass band, paying them famine prices, but they was 
worth it, because while Eddie is no Sousa they sure did 
horn a mean overture! Then up goes the curtain and 
the drama is on. 

Well, everything moved along smoothly, though 
some of these synthetic actors is a little nervous at 
being right up there on the stage for all the world to 
look at. But they are going over big with their parents, 
anyways, which is there in evening clothes and keeps 
constantly nudging each other with pride and the etc. 


282 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Judy never looked better and I guess that director was 
right, for, honest, she made the rest of ’em look like 
so many clowns. Rags is in his glory, strutting around 
like he’s the Duke of Diphtheria or something, on the 
account he’s playing the hero of this frolic. Two or 
three times when he catches my eye he sneers out over 
the footlights like it was part of the play. This is 
gradually getting me rosy, but when he has to put his 
arms around Judy in one of the scenes you could hear 
my teeth grit in far-off Siberia! 

Then some devil must of got into Rags’s brain, 
where they is already a congress of demons. He 
glances over his shoulder at me and deliberately pro¬ 
longs this part where he’s got his arms around Judy, 
bending over to kiss her. Judy looks surprised and 
then frightened and starts backing away across the 
stage with Rags after her. Everybody else seems to 
think this is in the play, but somehow I don't! At 
this critical point, Mary Ballinger, which is standing 
next to Kayo Kelly, whispers: 

“Rags must be crazy! I saw all the rehearsals and 
that’s never in the play. Look how scared Judy is!” 

That’s ample for me and I am starting up to the 
stage, when Judy backs into a table on which there is 
a lamp. Rags makes a grab for her and over goes 
table and lamp with a crash. 

Then the panic is on! 

The flimsy draperies went up like celluloid, and be¬ 
fore I have battled my ways half the distance to the 
footlights through the yelling, stampeding mob, the 
stage is a roaring furnace. Nate grabs wildly at my 


A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


283 


coat to hold me back, but I shook him off. I also shook 
off a couple of gents which has went fear-crazy and 
wants to climb through the roof, using a couple of 
women for ladders. Short right and left hooks dis¬ 
couraged them babies and in another minute I am on 
the stage with Judy. She’s trying to drag out some 
girl which has fainted away in a swoon. 

Rags Dempster, the hero of the play, has disap¬ 
peared and so has all the other brave actors. I got 
Judy outside and I got to snatch her up and carry her 
out bodily, because she refuses to leave the young lady 
which is peacefully sleeping on the floor. I went back 
and got the fainting beauty and also Mrs. Willcox and 
then I just took ’em as they come, this time with the 
kind assistance of Knockout Kelly, Nate, Lem Garfield, 
and a couple of other guys which figured what’s a few 
burns between friends? After a while Engine Com¬ 
pany No. 6 arrived, and as long as they was there they 
figured they might as well put out the fire, so that’s 
what they done. 

Our brand-new stage, movie screen, curtains, and 
all this sort of thing was simply burned out of exist¬ 
ence—quite some financial loss and don’t think it 
wasn’t! But the toughest break of all for me was the 
place I got burned. Just imagine what would happen 
to Katherine MacDonald if her face got burned, or 
John McCormack if his throat got burned, and you’ll 
get the idea of what it means when I tell you I got 
badly burned on the things which is my fortune—my 
hands! They’re just a puffed mass of raw blisters and 
in less than three weeks I got to step into the ring 


i 


284 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


with Gunner Slade and fight for a world’s champion¬ 
ship. 

Well, we manage to keep the thing out of the New 
York papers, which is one place I don’t want it, or 
there will be nobody show up to see a fight in which 
one guy is going into the ring with his hands all shot 
to pieces. Nate fells out the Gunner’s pilot on a post¬ 
ponement without letting him know why we’d like one, 
but there’s no chance. For some reason or other Gun¬ 
ner Slade has a longing to return to merry England 
and he says if the fight don’t come of! as scheduled 
he’ll beat it back, taking with him my ten-thousand- 
dollar appearance forfeit. I’ve had about all the losses 
I can take, so over Nate’s frantic protests I decide 
to go through with the battle on the advertised date. 

One look at the crowd as I climb through the ropes 
on the night of the quarrel is enough to convince me 
I’m going deeper into the hole by promoting this In¬ 
ternational carnival of assault and battery. When I 
pay Gunner Slade his hundred thousand guarantee and 
look after the other expenses, about all I’ll get for my 
end will be a punch in the nose. The big gaps of 
empty seats here and there is the answer to the sport 
writers’ stories that Gunner Slade will be a spread for 
me. If them babies only knew the shape my hands was 
in as I sit in my corner waiting for the opening bell, 
why, they wouldn’t of been yawning and looking 
around and acting like they wished they was some- 
wheres else! And if Gunner Slade only knew that Nate 
had to lance the blisters to tape my hands—well, can 
you imagine how happy that guy would of felt? 


A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


2B5 


I’ll pass over the pain I suffered every time I tried 
to close the gloves on my raw hands and the pain I 
suffered every time I looked at them empty seats and 
realized what they meant to my bankroll. It seems to 
me then that just about the time I started to get some- 
wheres, I always get floored for the count and I’m 
gloomily wondering am I one of these birds which is 
born to run second? Well, I chase them thoughts out 
of my mind. After all, the money’s a small thing. I 
can always get more—anybody can. What I devote 
my tumbling thoughts to is that no matter what I’ve 
lost, I’ve still got the opportunity of my life in front of 
me—a chance to become champion of the world at my 
trick. All I got to do is to knock this glowering Eng¬ 
lish scrapper kicking. Sounds easy, but believe me, it 
was quite a stunt! 

We both stepped out smartly at the bell and I led 
first to get it over with. My glove socked against Gun¬ 
ner Slade’s nose and I nearly fainted with the pain 
which shot up my arm to the shoulder. It wasn’t a 
stiff punch, either, just a mild left lead, but it was 
enough to show me that nothing but a miracle could 
make me knock the Gunner cold with the hands I got 
with me that night. I then begin to box very cautious, 
and, the mob which expected to see me sail into Slade 
and send ’em home early, gets highly indignant and 
razzes me to a fare-thee-well. The Gunner takes heart 
from my pacifist tactics and gets down to business 
himself. He drove me half ways across the ring with 
a wicked right to the head which didn’t do me a bit 
of good and when I merely crouched, covered up, and 


286 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


commenced to take it, the crowd goes wild. “Fight, 
you big stiff!” and “Fake! Fake! Fake!” is just a 
sample of the choice remarks which greets me on all 
sides. The least said about the opening frame, the 
better. I didn’t take two punches at Gunner Slade and 
it must of been fearful to look at! 

Round two was a duplicate of the first inning. Gun¬ 
ner Slade made a punching bag out of me, and the 
customers called me names which will never make me 
stuck on myself. Toward the end of the round the 
ringside comment got under my skin and I come out 
of my shell long enough to crash the surprised Gunner 
against the ropes with a right and left to the jaw. How 
them two socks felt to Mr. Slade I don’t know, but I 
do know that the pain from that pair of punches with 
my burned hands brought the water in streams from 
my eyes and give me a feeling in the pit of my stomach 
like when you go down in a fast elevator. I im¬ 
mediately went back on the defensive again, unable to 
follow up my advantage and finish him. The crowd 
had leaped on the seats when I opened up, now they 
sank back with groans and hisses. When I run to my 
corner at the bell I got the same kind of a reception that 
puss gives Rover. 

Gunner Slade come out for the third round with a 
rush and sent me back on my heels with a poisonous 
straight left. He then hooked the same glove to 
my heart and whoever says them English scrappers 
can’t hit is liars. This baby had a kick like two 
healthy mules! The mob roars when a right and 
left uppercut bends my knees and the Gunner com- 


A GRIM FAIRY TALE 287 

mences to swing ’em from the floor, thinking it’s all 
over. 

The boys which has laid four and five to one on me 
to win by a knockout is screaming madly for me to 
take at least one punch at the Gunner and not act like 
a sheep in a slaughter house. I’m all at sea from the 
punishment I’m taking and the razzing, and in dancing 
away from one of Slade’s wild haymakers I slipped to 
the canvas on my back, hitting my head with enough 
force to daze me for a second. The attendance thinks 
I been knocked stiff and you should of heard ’em. 
Like the steady roar of a record rain on a tin roof! I 
took “seven” and got up groggy. Nate yells for me 
to clinch, but the Gunner beat me to it with a terrible 
right swing to the pit of the stomach which drops me on 
my haunches for a clean knockdown. I am a very sick 
young man when the blessed gong stopped hostilities 
for that round. 

Nate is like a wild man as he drenches me with the 
water bucket. He rushes over to the referee and begins 
a argument about Gunner Slade’s gloves, demanding 
that they be examined. Nate knows that their ain’t a 
thing in the world the matter with the Englishman’s 
gloves: what he wants to do is give me a few extra 
seconds to come back to life. I needed a few years, 
not a few seconds! This Gunner Slade has cuffed 
and smacked me till I don’t know what it’s all about. 
While the referee and Kayo Kelly is examining the 
smiling Gunner’s gloves, Nate slips back to me and be¬ 
gins to unlace my right glove with feverish haste. 
Before I can stop him, he pulls a hypodermic syringe 


288 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


from his pocket and jabs the needle a mile in the side 
of my throbbing hand. 

“Listen!” he pants in my ear. “’At’s cocaine, get 
me? It’ll start to work in a minute and if they cut 
your arm off you wouldn’t feel a thing! Go out there 
now and swap wallops with this big tramp. I don’t 
think he can take it and if he could hit he’d of stopped 
you long ago, because he's already slapped you with 
everything but the bell. Go on now, kid, do your 
stuff r 

As the gong rung, Nate turns and hands the hypo¬ 
dermic syringe down to a newspaper man which has 
been watching all this with the greatest of surprise. 

Well, I’m a new man when I jump off my stool for 
the fourth round. With my hand cocained, I figure 
I’m free to tie into the Gunner and that’s what I done! 
I ducked his straight left and sunk my right under his 
heart with everything I got behind it and you never 
seen such a painfully astonished guy in your life. I 
think that one punch licked Gunner Slade, because his 
return, skidding off my ear, felt to me like the cuff 
of a playful kitten. Another torrid right down below 
opened him up, and while the crowd is still going nutty 
over the remarkable change which has suddenly come 
over me, I hooked him flush on the jaw with the same 
glove. He staggered back against the ropes, flounder¬ 
ing around like a drunken man. His seconds shrieked 
for him to dive into a clinch and I grinned at ’em over 
my shoulder, measured Slade with a light left and then 
shot my right at his bobbing jaw. He went down 
like a German mark and down is where he stayed I 


A GRIM FAIRY TALE 


289 


The Gunner’s manager and handlers swarm into my 
corner, yelling something it’s hard to hear over the 
continual roar of the crowd. We finally find out that 
one of Gunner Slade’s seconds seen Nate give me the 
hypodermic and they’re claiming the fight on a 
foul. Nate bends down and gets back the syringe 
from the newspaper guy he give it to. Then he 
hands it to a doctor which has been boosted into the 
ring. 

“ ’At’s plain warm water in that hypo,” says Nate 
carelessly to the interested reporters. “Nothin’ else! 
The doc will tell you as soon as he tests it. If I want 
to give my man water between rounds, I can do it. I 
knew if my battler thought he was gettin’ cocaine 

which would soon stop the pain, he’d sail into this 

* 

Englishman and drop him. ’At’s what he done! I 
kidded him out of ’at pain, I didn’t dope him. I keep 
my eyes open. I see ’em do that same trick once with 
a hophead. They tell him he’s gettin’ morphine and 
he got water, but it works O. K. on this guy for a 
couple of minutes. I thought they’d be no harm in 
tryin’ the same gag here—’at’s all!” 

Kayo Kelly has got my gloves off and Nate holds 
my hands up. They look like a couple of overripe 
tomatoes and if you don’t think they’re painful—just 
burn your hands once! 

“Good Heavens, look at his hands!” gasps the sport 
writer from the “Sphere.” “And he knocked Slade 
out with 'em!” he almost whispers. 

“He got ’at in a fire; I’ll give you the dope as soon 
as the doc here fixes up them hands,” says Nate. Then 


19 


290 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


he bends over me. “They must hurt like hell, don’t 
they, kid?” he says anxiously. 

What do 1 care if they hurt or not? I’m light- 
heavyweight champion of the world! 


ROUND TEN 


THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 

The other night I am wrestling with “Paradise 
Lost,” a novel by Johnny Milton. It’s one of the 
stories Judy picked out for me to read, so it must mean 
something, but between you and me and Kemal Pasha 
I can’t make head or tail out of it and that’s a fact! 
It’s all poetry and, to make it harder, none of it rimes. 
I wouldn’t be surprised if it ain’t a little too rich for 
my blood yet, hey? That’s been one of my greatest 
troubles—separating the stuff which will help me and 
the stuff which won’t from the mass of volumes I am 
studying. I been taking learning in mass formation, 
devouring books like “Romeo and Juliet” and “The 
Art of Embalming” in the same day, and that last one 
is hard to work into the average conversation, what I 
mean! 

Well, knocking out Gunner Slade for the light- 
heavyweight crown I realized one of the greatest ambi¬ 
tions of my life—I went to the top in the game I was 
in. I was a world’s champion! Even though I hadn’t 
picked boxing as my life work, the fact that I was 
king in my division gave me more satisfaction than I 
can put down here on paper. It’s a hobby of mine to 


291 


292 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


want to finish first in anything I try. Why, even if I 
fell off Washington’s Monument my one wish on the 
way down would be that as long as I was going to hit 
the ground at all, I’d hit it so hard that it would stand 
as a record for all time! 

After I have smacked Gunner Slade for a mock 
turtle, Judy reminds me of my vow to quit the ring 
and bust head first into the business world. I had 
stalled Judy and talked her out of this thing a million 
times before, but this time it was a showdown—I have 
to give up either Judy or the prize-ring, I can’t have 
both! 

To quit this game before I’ve even got used to seeing 
“World’s Champion” beside my name was to me like 
climbing the highest mountain in the world, reaching 
the summit bruised and winded, and then deliberately 
jumping off before enjoying the view from the top. 
But Judy is—Judy! So while the sport writers is still 
commenting on my sensational victory over Gunner 
Slade and guessing who I’ll battle next, I throwed a 
bombshell into their midst by announcing my retirement 
from the ring. 

A lot of my friends thought this was just another 
one of my publicity stunts and they merely smiled, but 
it wasn’t no publicity stunt, I was in dead earnest. 
When the sport writers find out I am not kidding, 
why, they laced into me with a gusto! One paper even 
said that the beating I had took from Gunner Slade 
before I slapped him double cuckoo had ruined me for 
life. Others roasted me to a fare-thee-well and let it 
go at that. All this stuff was fine for Mr. Gunner 


THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 293 

Slade which immediately gets terrible rosey. This 
dizzy boloney squawks that he lost to me on a fluke 
punch, challenges me for a return bout, and when I 
don’t answer he claims the light-heavyweight title. 
This makes me laugh, as I know I can take Gunner 
Slade every day in the week if necessary and I guess 
the Gunner knows it too, or else he’s a fellow which 
is opposed to learning by experience. 

However, there is one baby which don’t get no mer¬ 
riment out of my leaving the ring and that’s Nate 
Shapiro. 

When Nate reads all that stuff in the New York 
papers he comes to me in a high rage. 

“You wanna quit this clownin’, kid,” he says, wav¬ 
ing a newspaper at me. “We got a quarter-million- 
dollar year starin’ us right in the face and this apple¬ 
sauce you’re givin’ out about leavin’ the ring is gettin’ 
the promoters nervous—you ought to see the wires I 
got this mornin’. I been busy phonin’ the New York 
papers for the last three hours, tellin’ ’em your retire¬ 
ment is April Fool!” 

“Nate, I am not clowning,” I says, gently but firmly. 
“I have fought my last box fight, and that’s all there is 
to it! I promised Judy I would call it a day when I 
win the light-heavyweight championship of the world. 
Well, I win it, so Pm through. Let’s say it was a fool 
promise—all right, I made it and I got to keep it. 
Anyways, having won the title, what else is there for 
me to shoot at as a boxer ?” 

“What else is they for you to shoot at?” howls Nate, 
when he can talk. “They’s a million dollars for you to 


294 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


shoot at, you dumbell! Have you got so much jack 
that you can turn down a million without flickin’ a 
muscle ?” 

“Shut up!” I growls, “Don’t make me feel no 
worse than I already do. Maybe we can make a for¬ 
tune out of our picture theatre.” 

“And maybe Lake Eric is a tennis court!” hollers 
Nate. “I know what’s the matter with you, studyin’ 
them books night and day has made you cuckoo! I 
warned you to lay off ’at stuff. What do you want 
with a education? The chances is if you’d of had one 
you’d be a chauffeur of a addin’ machine in some guy’s 
office now for about twenty-five bucks a week, instead 
of bein’ able to click off that much a punch! Did you 
wade through these tomatoes to the championship 
simply so’s you could have the pleasure of quittin’ the 
ring the first chance you got to make money like they 
make it in the mint? I took you from behind a soda 
fountain and made you and the minute we both get a 
chance to collect heavy you throw me down!” 

“I ain’t throwing you down any more than I’m 
throwing myself down, Nate,” I says. “But—a prom¬ 
ise is a promise! If Judy-” 

“Let me talk to Miss Willcox,” butts in Nate. “I 
bet she ain’t got the slightest of slight ideas just what 
she’s askin’ you to give up. When I show her the 
dough we can take down in the next year, the chances 
is ’at not only will she want you to stay in the ring, but 
she’ll expect you to go around pickin’ fights in the 
streets!” 

But she didn’t, and after a four-day ceaseless attack 



THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 295 

on her objections, Nate thro wed up the sponge. Then 
he turned his attentions to me again and again he is 
thrown for a loss. I didn’t want to quit the ring and 
toss away the jack I could make as a champ any more 
than I wanted to go to the hospital and have my ears 
cut off, but rather than lose Judy’s friendship I’d give 
up anything! When Nate finds his threats and plead¬ 
ings is useless, he gets maniacal with rage and tells me 
he’s going to sell his interest in our picture theatre, 
check out of Drew City, and go back to live in New 
York, taking Kayo Kelly with him. That was a blow 
to me indeed, as I had come to look on Nate and Kayo 
as face cards in any man’s deck. What I’ll do if they 
both desert me was a fresh problem for my busy mind. 

However, Knockout Kelly solved that for me him¬ 
self in a short but highly interesting speech he made 
when Nate told him to pack his collars for the voyage 
to New York. 

“No can do, Nate,” says Kayo, shaking his head. 
“Me and this slab is gettin’ along fine. I think I’ll stick 
here with Gale and see what happens. Besides, the 
further away I stay from Broadway the better for all 
concerned. A married man ain’t got no business 
steppin’ out and-” 

“A married man!” yells Nate, grabbing Kayo by 
the shoulders. “And I thought you was blonde-proof! 
Have you went to work and wed somebody on me, you 
big sapolio?” 

Kayo shakes himself loose. “Well, I ain’t exactly 
a matrimaniac yet,” he says, with a sickly grin. “But 
I will be in a few weeks. Me and Mary Ballinger has 



296 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


signed articles for the popular finish fight! I’m a bum 
picker, hey?” 

“You lucky stiff!” I says, shaking Kayo’s hand. 
“Congratulations!” 

“Mary’s lucky too,” - says Kayo, calmly. “I ain’t 
exactly what you could call a poor investment for no 
girl. Maybe I ain’t no second Valentino, but Mary 
will never have to worry about where her next limou¬ 
sine is cornin’ from! I-” 

But then Nate has got his breath back and he whin- 
neys with rage. 

“Shut up, you ingrateful banana!” he cuts in. 
“Both you babies is givin’ me a pushin’ around, hey? 
Well, either of you try to fight for somebody else and 
you’ll see twice as many lawyers as you thought they 
was in the business. I got you both sewed up to iron- 
bound contracts, black on white, and if you think you 
can laugh that off, you’re goofey!” 

“Nate,” says Kayo, laying his hand on our raging 
manager’s arm, “nobody’s got no intentions of boxin’ 
for some other pilot. You got it all wrong. I’d part 
with my right arm in the middle of a fight if you 
wanted it and I know Gale would too. But—I’m 
gettin’ along, Nate. I can still put the parsnips on the 
floor, but I ain’t as burly as I used to be. The old 
wind ain’t there and I can’t take a pastin’ like I used 
to could take one. What is they in this game for me 
any more but punishment? On the other hand, I got 
a bank roll, a interest in our theatre here, and the 
sweetest girl in the wide, wide world thinks I’m the 
snake’s hips. What more could I ask ? Why, Nate, I 



THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 297 

wouldn’t go six inches away from this burg now! 
Something tells me that it ain’t goin’ to be no century 
before Gale here will be the biggest guy either of us 
knows. This baby’s goin’ to get over and don’t think 
he won’t. Well, I’m goin’ to be with him when that 
day comes, because I figure that anybody which is with 
him will be a winner too!” 

Nate’s ready to tear his hair and I bet he could of 
got ten years for what he’s thinking about both of us. 

“But you got to mingle with Battlin’ Murphy at 
Syracuse in a month!” he roars at Kayo, “how ’bout 
that?” 

“I’ll file Murphy’s application,” says Kayo, coolly, 
“I’m sittin’ pretty here now, Nate, and to tell you 
the truth I don’t care if I smack another guy in my 
life again or not! Anyways, Mary don’t wish me all 
marked up for the weddin’.” 

“I fail to see what difference it would make whether 
you got marked up or not,” sneers Nate. “You got a 
pan on you now like a gorilla!” 

“Mary likes it!” grins Kayo. “No use, Nate, you 
can’t even get me sore. If I was you, I’d grab myself 
off a nice little girl in this town and throw in with us. 
As Nero says when he burned Rome, ‘It’s all fun!’ A 
married man can go twice as far as a bachelor.” 

“Twice as far in bad, in debt and insane!” snarls 
Nate. “I’m off both you bozos for life—get wed and 
be damned to you. I’m goin’ to leave this trap and go 
to New York!” 

But I’m glad to report that Mrs. Willcox prevailed on 
Nate to stick around and await further developments. 


298 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Well, along around this time the New \ork papers 
is full of nothing but the big merger Mr. Brock has 
brought about among the locomotive manufacturers 
with him at the head of the whole business. His pic¬ 
ture is printed alongside of Rockefeller, Morgan, Ford, 
and a couple of other fellows which has promising 
futures, and he’s spoken of as one of the richest men 
in the world. When he comes back to Drew City from 
putting over that merger in New York, he gets a re¬ 
ception like a king gets—in a movie—and it tickles 
him silly. It seems millionaires is human beings, even 
as you and me. So he turns right around and makes 
the town a present of a quarter-million-dollar hospital 
and he couldn’t of give them nothing more to the point, 
because the hospital they already had there wasn’t 
equipped to handle nothing more serious than, say, 
dandruff or chapped hands. 

Well, the day the corner stone was laid is a day me 
and Drew City won’t forget for a long time. Mayor 
Baxter pronounces it a legal holiday and the whole 
burg turns out for the ceremonies. Eddie Granger’s 
Vesper A. C. Brass Band had a field day, the streets 
is buried under flags and bunting and speeches flowed 
like water. The principal spellbinders, as usual, was 
Lem Garfield, and Judge Tuckerman. When they got 
through doing their stuff, Mr. Brock tied in. Then 
comes the big surprise of the day—to me anyways. I 
am sitting on the speaker’s platform with Spence and 
Judy when Mr. Brock finishes his speech amid a tor¬ 
nado of applause. He turns around and sees me and a 
big smile spreads itself across his face. Then he nods 


THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 299 

for me to come over to him. I can’t imagine what 
he wants with me out there before all that crowd of 
mingled friends and enemies, but up I get and walk 
over while the mob looks on in astonishment. Mr. 
Brock lays one hand on my shoulder and holds up the 
other one for silence. He gets immediate service, like 
usual. 

“Fellow citizens!” he says, in his booming voice. 
“I wish to bring to your notice the most interesting 
object in Drew City—Mr. Gale Galen. Yesterday a 
penniless, friendless, ambition-driven wanderer; to¬ 
day, world’s champion light-heavyweight boxer with a 
modest fortune and a handsome income; to-morrow— 
who knows? Who can say to what heights this re¬ 
markable young man will go? He is still a mere boy, 
yet consider what he has already accomplished. You 
young men who are ambitious and determined to make 
your mark in the world, don’t waste your precious time 
reading the lives of successful men written by flatter¬ 
ing biographers, observe the progress of Gale Galen, 
use him as a living textbook, for one day you will be 
proud of having produced him in Drew City!” 

Well, that’s just a preliminary. He says a lot more 
about me, while my face gets so red I bet you could 
of saw the reflection a mile away. When he finishes, 
Spence starts some applause which grows till it gets to 
what the “Daily Sentinel” the next day calls a ova¬ 
tion. 

Mr. Brock’s speech about me makes a awful hit with 
Spence, Judy, and her mother. They act as proud as 
if I had really did something to deserve all that praise 


300 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


from a man like him. But it likewise made me a few 
more enemies, as envy is a staple product of a small 
town. But in particular, it broils Rags Dempster and 
his father. They already hated me, and after Mr. 
Brock got done telling the world what a knockout he 
thinks I am, why, their feelings for me before was 
infatuation alongside of the way they loathe me now. 

The first comeback I get from the effects of Mr. 
Brock’s speech on them babies is when the Board of 
Trade puts on the ice for me and my partners. Al¬ 
though we are owners of a theatre in the town, we are 
not called into any of the conferences the board holds 
with the other business men for the praiseworthy pur¬ 
poses of making the natives blow their dough in Drew 
City instead of taking it into New York. They frame 
up all kind of schemes, bargain days, “Help Local Mer¬ 
chants !” weeks, and this and that, inviting all the other 
storekeepers to turn in ideas, but they don’t give us a 
tumble. When I go around to solicit ads for our 
screen, the only guy I can line up is old Ajariah Stubbs. 
The rest of these bozos just laugh me off. 

I don’t have to consult no fortune teller to find out 
what all this means. Sore at the interest Mr. Brock 
is taking in me, Rags and his father is simply bearing 
down on me through the Board of Trade, hoping I’ll 
get discouraged and leave town. But they didn’t know 
me as well as they thought they did! Of course, this 
stuff annoys me, but the ring ain’t the only place where 
I can take punishment. In fact, I don’t get good till 
the going gets tough! So I go right ahead planning 
publicity stunts and business getters for our theatre, 


THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 301 

giving the customers as much as I can for their jack 
and still make money. It ain’t long before I had built 
up a regular trade which packed the place every night. 
The mob was all pleased and me and Nate and Kayo 
was winning dough on our investment. 

Then one day Mr. Brock wants to know why I don’t 
appear at the Board of Trade meetings with the other 
business men. I am no squawker, so I simply says I 
have never been invited and let it go at that. He gives 
me a shrewd look. 

“Never been invited, eh?” he says, frowning. “So 
that’s the way the wind blows. Well, son, you will 
be invited!” 

“I don’t think so, sir,” I says. “I can’t make them 
like me if they don’t want to.” 

“No?” he says sharply. “Well, I can! There will 
be a meeting of the board at ten to-morrow morning. 
Be there!” 

As life to me those days was just one big surprise 
after another, it took a whole lot to give me a kick, 
but what happened at that Board of Trade meeting the 
next day furnished me with a thrill I’ll be a long time 
forgetting. The board appears astonished at seeing 
me in the hall, but before Mr. Brock got through with 
’em they was double dumbfounded. He’s president 
of the board, but seldom shows up at the meetings, as 
he’s too busy with his other interests. When he does 
show up the fur flies, and this day was no exception. 
Before any of the business of the meeting could get 
under way, Mr. Brock calls ’em to order. Then he 
takes the floor, with me standing beside him. 


302 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


“Gentlemen,” he says, “let me introduce Mr. Gale 
Galen, proprietor of the Judith Theatre, on Main 
Street, and one of the most promising young business 
men of Drew City. He would be a credit to any city 
and should be encouraged to stay here and assisted to 
prosper. I want to see him at these meetings, because 
his youth, enthusiasm, and ambition will probably make 
this a real chamber of commerce, instead of a gather¬ 
ing place for knockers and calamity howlers as it is 
now. I, therefore, move that Mr. Galen be appointed 
a member of this board!” 

That goaled ’em! 

Rags Dempster’s father looks like he’s on the brinks 
of death from appoplexy, and my enemies rallies 
around him, bawling angry protests. Mr. Brock says 
nothing at all, leaving it to the bootlicking jazzbos 
which worships the ground he walks on to take his 
part and mine. At the end of a boisterous half hour 
I have been elected to the Drew City Board of Trade 
by a vote of 20 to 4. 

Old Man Dempster immediately resigns and takes 
the air. 

Well, now that I was out of the ring I didn’t have 
to train no more and I found time hanging heavy on 
my hands. I never was born to stall around, that’s a 
cinch! Even if I had a million I’d find something to 
do and don’t think I wouldn’t, but as things stood then 
I was far from a millionaire. I lost a frightful bunch 
of jack promoting that fight with Gunner Slade, and 
the fire we had in our theatre also put a heavy dent 
in the old bankroll. I’m commencing to get worried 


THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 303 

and restless. The papers is still riding Nate for not 
matching me with somebody, and of course, Nate’s 
still riding me. 

Not only are my hands itching for the feel of the 
padded gloves, but I actually need the money. So I 
make up my mind I’ll take a long chance and tackle 
Judy on the subject of box fighting again, not that I 
got much hope that she’ll remove the ban, but a mar¬ 
velous offer from a big New York promoter for a 
fight drives me to doing something. So one day in 
the office I put it up to Judy, cold. 

“Eh—say, Judy, would you mind if I went back to 
the ring for just one more scuffle?” I stammers, losing 
forty pounds of nerve with every word as she stares 
at me with wide open eyes and a gathering frown be¬ 
tween ’em. 

“I thought we were all through with that subject, 
Gale,” she says in kind of pained surprise. “You are 
well started on a business career, a member of the 

Board of Trade, your theatre is making money, and 
_>> 

“Just a minute, Judy,” I butt in. “The theatre is 
making money all right, but when the profits is divided 
between me and Nate and Kayo Kelly, why, none of 
us gets enough to go wild about. As far as being 
started on a business career is concerned, maybe I am, 
but I don’t think I got the right kind of a start. In 
other words, I feel that to wind up merely as part 
owner of a small-town picture theatre, after all my 
trials and tribulations, is much ado about nothing, as 
Willie Shakespeare says!” 



304 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Judy don’t say a word. She just sits there looking 
out the window at Drew City and tapping her desk 
with a lead pencil. So I took heart and trot out some 
more facts and figures. 

“I wouldn’t of mentioned the adjective box fighting 
to you, Judy, under no circumstances,” I says, “only 
Nate’s got a offer for me to fight Jack Martin, this 
new sensation which has been flattening one and all 
in the light-heavyweight class. There’s seventy-five 
thousand dollars in it for me and with that amount of 
jack added to the little dough I already got I could go 
into some business with a more exciting future to it 
than running a picture theatre in Drew City. Seventy- 
five grand would be important money to Rockefeller, 
and I certainly can’t dismiss it with a curl of my lip!” 

“Nevertheless, Gale,” says Judy, swinging around 
and facing me, “if you return to the ring, our—our 
friendship comes to an end. There is no use arguing 
about it because I will never change on that point. The 
picture theatre is only a beginning, and you are young. 
With Mr. Brock’s influence and your own prestige here 
you have a splendid and honorable career facing you. 
If you go back to the prize ring, you will lose all of 
that—everything you have been striving for-” 

“Including you, Judy?” I butt in. 

“Including me!” she says—and then, her face sud¬ 
denly flaming red, she flounces out of the office. 

Well, I’m in a fine state of mind and don’t think I 
ain’t. I don’t want to lose my chances with Judy no 
more than I want to lose my neck, but at one and the 
same time I can’t get no kick out of my position in 



THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 305 


life then, no fooling. However, I let the subject drop 
as far as Judy is concerned and continue studying every 
book I can lay my hands on and attending lectures with 
her at Columbia’s College, New York. 

In the meanwhile Rags is put in charge of the 'carpet 
factory by his father, which is forced to go to Europe 
for his health, according to the Drew City “Sentinel.” 
However, a few days later it comes out in the New 
York papers that he just dropped $300,000 in Wall 
Street, so I guess he went across the bounding main 
to get over his dizziness, and I don’t blame him. Any¬ 
ways, old Mr. Dempster must of been still suffering 
from shell shock when he made Rags manager of his 
rug plant, because Rags is no more fit to handle men 
than I’m fit to handle Dempsey. He ain’t been on the 
job a week before he brings about a strike through his 
surliness, inexperience, and high-handed methods of 
dealing with trained workers which had been years on 
his father’s pay roll. So for the first time in its his¬ 
tory the Dempster & Co. mill shuts down. Then Rags 
pulls the boss boner of a lifetime devoted to making 
boneheaded plays. When a delegation of the men 
comes to pay him the honors of a visit, Rags refuses 
to treat with ’em, calls ’em ungrateful hounds, and 
slams the door in their faces. Not satisfied with a 
stunt like that, this 87-carat dumbell brings down a lot 
of gunmen and the like from New York to take the 
places of the strikers at about twice the wages the old 
hands was getting. 

Then the fun began! 

At first, the strikers just parade and hold mass meet- 


30 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


306 

ings. Then one morning Rags drives down to his 
office and discovers every window in the factory has 
been broke during the night. After that a couple of 
mysterious fires in the plant is just discovered before 
they get going good. This would of been the tip-off 
to anybody but a egg like Rags that the time had ar¬ 
rived to get a rush of brains to the head and talk mat¬ 
ters over with the strikers, before they quit kidding 
with him and do something serious. But Rags is one 
of these thick headed babies which has got to die of 
pneumonia before they learn that neglecting a cold is 
dangerous. He keeps on aggravating the men till 
he’s got ’em all ugly enough to cook him and one night 
they try to do that 1 

I am buzzing along the State road near the carpet 
factory in my car with Judy when we hear a yelling 
and shouting like I’ve often heard at a ringside when a 
fellow is getting knocked stiff. The next minute we 
swing around a bend and I got to jam on the emer¬ 
gency brake to keep from running into a howling, mill¬ 
ing mob which completely blocks the road. A lot of 
them is running around tearing open pillows and 
gathering up the feathers, and on one side is a barrel 
of boiling pitch. Two fellows is prancing around with 
a long fence rail between ’em, hollering for the others 
to speed things up. None of ’em gives me and Judy a 
tumble, but Judy gets a bit scared and tells me to turn 
around and go back. 

“What’s all the excitement?” I call to one fellow 
which comes up with his arms full of feathers. 

“We got this young Dempster skunk,” he snarls. 


THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 307 


“and we’re gonna teach him he can’t take the bread 
and butter out of our mouths and get away with it. 
We’re gonna tar and feather the yellah dog!” 

“And ride him on a rail out of town!” adds another 
ex-carpet weaver joyfully. 

Judy gasps and I must say for a split second I felt 
highly tickled. Rags has double-crossed, framed, and 
fouled me so often that I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t 
get a kick out of seeing him get the worst of it, a re¬ 
ward he richly deserves. I step on the gas and start 
to steer my bus back through the mob and then all of 
a sudden I stop dead. I don’t know what’s the matter 
with me, but I’m simply crazy about fair play! If 
just one guy had wanted to tar and feather Rags I 
would of declared the scheme a good thought and 
wished him the best of luck, but there’s over two hun¬ 
dred of these strikers, and two hundred to one is no 
fair, not even against a Rags Dempster, now is it? 
So I dash out of the car and shove my ways through 
the crowd. I know nearly all of ’em and all of ’em 
knows me and even in the excitement they make room 
for the world’s light-heavyweight champion. 

Rags is in the center of the mob and he sure looks 
like he’s been through the mill, he does for a fact. 
Half his clothes has been tore off by willing hands, his 
chalk white face is all bruised and scratched and two 
or three huskies is pushing him around between ’em 
like he’s a medicine ball. 

“Lynch him! String him up! Get a rope!” they 
commence to howl on the outskirts of the mob. 

Rags looks wildly about, recognizes me all of a sud- 


3°8 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


den and grabs me. "Save me, Galen, save me—they’re 
going to kill me 1” he babbles. 

The fellows around him falls back and glares at me. 
Some of ’em jostles against me, and I backed away 
carefully, pushing Rags behind me. I didn’t make 
the mistake of hitting nobody. That would of spoiled 
everything—including me. 

"Well, what are you buttin’ in for?” growls a big 
guy, shoving out his chin invitingly. 

"I am butting in to prevent you babies from com¬ 
mitting murder,” I says. "I don’t like this Dempster 
no more than you do, but if he dies as the results of 
your nursery sports here to-night the grand jury will 
indict the lot of you for manslaughter. What’s the use 
of getting yourselves in a jam like that on account of 
a fellow like this? Look at him. He’s half dead now 
—a total loss if there ever was one!” 

There’s plenty growling, but the ringleaders around 
me looks thoughtful. The mention of "manslaughter” 
and "grand jury” had cooled ’em off a bit and then at 
this critical minute Rags slumps down to the ground in 
a dead faint. The crowd begins to melt away around us 
and somebody tells the others which comes crowding up 
to see what stopped the festivities that Rags has 
dropped dead. That was enough! In twenty minutes 
there was nobody on hand but me and Rags and Judy 
and we drove the slightly shopworn young man home. 

Well, with nothing else to do I spent most of my 
spare time hanging around Ajariah Stubbs’s drug store 
with Spence Brock. Spence had graduated from 
Princeton and was now a full-fledged Bachelor of 


THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 309 


Arts, but he wasn’t quite ready yet to hang out his 
sign and begin business at that trade. I was still dop¬ 
ing out schemes for old Ajariah to help keep his stock 
moving and fussing around the soda fountain where I 
used to do my stuff, composing new drinks and writ¬ 
ing trade-pulling signs to paste on the mirror back of 
the counter. But this stuff was all applesauce to me. 
It was just so much child’s play. I should of been 
doing something big and this puttering around was 
driving me cuckoo. Then there’s another thing which 
was getting on my nerves and wearing me down. 
That’s the difference in the way the town treated me 
since I become a fightless champion. The kids didn’t 
follow me on the streets no more, instead they’d cross 
to the other side and make cracks to each other which 
set ’em all laughing and looking at me. 

I go in Kale Yackley’s cigar store one day and over 
in a corner some of the hard guys from Nichmeyer’s 
Garage is playing stud poker. When I come in they 
pay as much attention to me as they do to their hole 
card and that’s a face. I hear somebody whisper 
“Sure, that’s him. H’s light-heavyweight champ, but 
the big stiff won’t fight nobody! They’s a dozen 
boloneys can take him right now and he knows it. I 
wouldn’t be afraid to take a cuff at him myself!” A 
couple of months before them guys would of acted 
tickled all day if I spoke to ’em. Such is life! 

Then this Jack Martin stops Gunner Slade in one 
busy round where it took me four, so Martin claims 
the title, as I won’t accept his challenge. Even my 
best friends, outside of Judy, commences to hint that 


3io 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


I should fight Martin and stop this talk about me being 
fainthearted. They keep after me night and day till 
I’m red-headed and find sleep comes under the head of 
the impossibles as far as I’m concerned. I worried off 
ten pounds in less than two weeks, on the level! 
Finally, I just can’t stand things no longer and one 
morning after my usual sleepless night I sent Nate to 
whooping with joy by telling him to accept the offer of 
$75,000 for a scuffle with Jack Martin. I don’t want 
to promote the bout myself, as I figure it will take all 
my time and energies to get in shape for this man 
killer. 

When I try to tell Judy how I have been drove into 
this fight she waves me away, white to the lips. I 
never seen her so mad. She won’t listen to nothing 
at all, but throws up her job as stenographer in our 
office and won’t even speak to me at her mother’s 
boarding house. 

A few nights later Rags comes around, stalling that 
he wants to see Mrs. Willcox about something or other, 
and when I come by the parlor around nine o’clock, 
why Judy is in there talking to him with her mother. 
Well, that’s the last straw which fractured the camel’s 
back, and the next day I packed up and move to the 
Commercial House, the unhappiest fellow in America 
by a wide margin. As far as I can see, I have lost 
Judy forever and a day, and I get so careless in my 
training for Jack Martin that Nate predicts this bozo 
will flatten me in a round if I don’t snap into it. Nate 
and Knockout Kelly remains at Mrs. Willcox’s board¬ 
ing house, and I get reports on Judy from them. I 


THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 311 

find out she’s got a job in New York, but what this 
job is neither Nate or Kayo seems to know. 

Then one day, weeks after I have left Mrs. Will- 
cox’s, I am putting Nate through the third degree 
when he says he’s heard Judy speak of “rehearsals” 
and “make-up.” This information makes me a first- 
class lunatic! I know what it means. 

Sleep and me couldn’t get together at all that night, 
and the next day I follow Judy to New York without 
her knowing it. My worst fears is realized when I 
find out that she is one of the chorus girls in a Broad¬ 
way musical comedy. Just think of it, Judy a chorus 
girl! I got a ticket away back in the balcony, where 
she wouldn’t be liable to see me, and I sit through that 
show like a fellow in a dream—a nightmare! I ain’t 
got the faintest idea what the play is all about, and I 
couldn’t repeat two words from that show if my life 
depends on it. All I can see is Judy, and I imagine 
everybody around me knows how I feel and notices 
that I dig my nails inches into the palms of my hands 
as I watch the girl I am crazy about, out there on that 
stage for all these fatheads to look at. There’s no use 
of me trying to explain my sensations to you. If you 
really wish to know how I felt, go and get in love! 

The minute the curtain goes down on the last act 
of this frolic I beat it around to the stage door, de¬ 
termined to have it out with Judy for once and for all. 
I’m prepared to make any concession if she’ll quit this 
show. With these thoughts in my head I tear around 
to the back of the theatre and all but stumble over Rags 
Dempster. Of course he’s waiting there to see Judy, 


3 12 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


and he makes a couple of cracks to me with the regards 
to her being in the show which put me in a murderous 
frame of mind, but I lay off him because I know a 
meelee outside the theatre with this hound would ruin 
any chance I might have of making up with Judy. 

I give the doorkeeper my card to take in to her, and 
Rags sends his in too, and then we stand there waiting, 
glaring at each other like a couple of strange bulldogs. 
Finally the doorkeeper comes out and hands me back 
my card. Judy has wrote on it: “I will be out in 
twenty minutes. Wait!” 

Just looking at her handwriting again sends my heart 
banging against my ribs, and I can’t help grinning at 
Rags when I read her message. The doorkeeper turns 
to him and says: ‘‘They was no answer for you, young 
feller, so on your way. It’s against the rules to allow 
you Johns to hang around the stage door. Take the air!” 

I took Judy home from the theatre that night, and I 
only wish she had lived in San Francisco instead of 
Drew City, which is a mere thirty-eight miles from 
New York, and when we get there I ain’t touched on 
a tenth of the subjects we got to talk about. The main 
thing, of course, is the question of whether or not she 
will give up the stage. She’s got just one answer for 
that and nothing will change it. If I will call off my 
coming fight with Jack Martin and keep my word to 
stay out of the ring, she’ll leave the stage. If I fight 
Jack Martin or Jack anybody, she will go on the road 
with this show, which is due to leave New York in a 
month for forty weeks around the U. S. 

Well, when I am with Judy, I would promise her 


THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 313 

anything. Nothing she asks sounds unreasonable to 
me. So, without thinking or caring about the conse¬ 
quences, in fact, thinking only that if I fight Martin 
I lose Judy, I give her my word I will cancel the bout, 
although it’s already been heavily advertised and I 
got a ten-thousand-dollar appearance forfeit up. A 
fellow in love is a hot sketch, ain’t he ? 

The next morning I move back to Mrs. Willcox’s 
from the Commercial House, a thing which gives 
Knockout Kelly and Nate a lot of laughs. Nate says 
watching me and Judy is more fun than watching a 
circus, but when I tell him I ain’t got the slightest in¬ 
tentions of boxing Jack Martin, why, all the fun dis¬ 
appears as far as Nate is concerned. At first he just 
simply won’t believe me, but when I convince him I 
am not kidding he goes triple cuckoo, raving around 
the house like a maniac. Two or three times we nearly 
come to blows and would of did so, only I don’t want 
to cuff Nate by no means, though some of his com¬ 
ments about me running out of the Martin match 
would of made a rabbit cuff a bulldog. 

When the sport writers recovered from their amaze¬ 
ment at my second resignation from the ring they went 
after me with their heavy artillery in earnest. What 
they called me before was affectionate terms of endear¬ 
ment alongside of the way they referred to me now. 
“Cheese champion,” “false alarm,” and “yellow” is 
just a few of the labels they tacked after my name in 
their columns, and many of ’em recognized Jack Mar¬ 
tin’s claim to the light-heavyweight championship since 
T refused to defend the title. 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


3 i 4 

In Drew City I am treated like I got smallpox, even 
people which used to be my warmest admirers giving 
me the air. Judge Tuckerman, Lem Garfield, old 
Ajariah Stubbs, Spence, and a lot of others don’t hesi¬ 
tate to tell me they think I am making a serious mis¬ 
take in not meeting Martin, but the hardest blow of 
all is when Mr. Brock sees me at a Board of Trade 
meeting one day and wants to know what’s all this non¬ 
sense about me canceling my fight with Jack Martin. 
When I tell him it ain’t nonsense he acts like he’s as¬ 
tounded and says he’s disappointed in me. Then he 
walks away before I can explain matters to him, and 
when I meet him on the street a couple of days after¬ 
ward he gives me the ice. 

I heard from Spence later that his father had bet 
$25,000 on me to whip Martin, and as it was a “play 
or pay” bet he stands to lose the jack if I don’t fight. 

Well, the next couple of weeks in Drew City was 
about the most miserable I ever spent in my life. Al¬ 
though I have banged around considerable since I been 
a kid, and took a lot of punishment, both mental and 
physical, I am not used to being treated like a dog 
and I never will get used to it! Judy was simply 
wonderful to me, and of course that helped a lot, but 
it did hurt to have all my old friends practically pass 
me up. Then again, to lose my standing in Drew 
City through no fault of mine after all the time I had 
spent trying to mean something there, was not easy 
to take either. However, I said nothing to Judy, 
though a word from her would of sent me into the 
ring against Jack Martin and change all this. I 


THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 315 

figured she thought she was doing the best thing, in 
keeping me from boxing, and I’d rather have her 
friendship than all the others put together. 

Then one day, just when things look blackest for 
me, the sun comes busting through the clouds, as it 
always will if a fellow will have the nerve and patience 
to face out the rain. I was sitting out on the porch 
after dinner, alone as usual, when Judy comes out and 
lays her hand on my shoulder. 

“Gale,” she says quietly, “I have been thinking 
things over and I realize the position I have placed 
you in by making you cancel your fight with Jack 
Martin. I can’t stand them calling you a quitter and 
a coward, and I don’t think it is good for a spirit such 
as yours is to suffer that sort of thing in silence. If 
you want to fight Martin, go ahead. And I hope you’ll 
win!” 

Well, for a minute I can’t believe my ears, and then 
I let out a yell of joy. I beat it over to the theatre 
and tell Nate the good news and we both cavorted 
around in the lobby till the incoming and outgoing cus¬ 
tomers views us with alarm. While Nate goes down 
to the railroad station and keeps the telegraph opera¬ 
tor awake sending wires to the newspapers, Jack Mar¬ 
tin’s pilot and the fight promoter, me and our moving- 
picture operator fixed up a slide and throwed it on the 
screen in our theatre: “Six-Second Smith has just 
agreed to fight Jack Martin for the World’s light- 
heavyweight title!” The applause like to raise the 
roof, and it did raise my spirits to a height they had 
not been for many’s the day. 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


316 

The next day I am back in training again, and the 
big barn which Nate had fitted up as a first-class gym 
was packed to the doors every afternoon. Mr. Brock 
drops around in a few days to watch me work out, 
and he’s as friendly toward me as he ever was now that 
I’m going through with the fight. Besides Knockout 
Kelly, Tommy O’Ryan, and Two-Punch Jackson, 
which helped condition me as usual, I got a couple of 
fast lightweights down from New York to box with 
for speed. 

I figured it was high time I paid more attention to 
the scientific end of the game, feeling that I’d been 
taking too much punishment and too many unnecessary 
chances in my fights through my willingness to trade 
punches. I wanted to avoid getting cut up in the 
future. The rough and tough stuff was all right when 
I was a preliminary boloney, but now that I was a 
champion I wanted to fight like a champion and not 
like a longshoreman on a dock. 

Nate, however, yelled murder about my method of 
training for Martin. I ought to devote all my time to 
developing my punch, says Nate, and leave the boxing 
run for the end book. 

“You’re a prize fighter and not no chorus girl, and 
it don’t make no difference whether you get marked up 
or not, as long as you win!” Nate tells me. “I don’t 
like to see you learnin’ so much about gettin’ away 
from punches—you can’t knock anybody dead by back 
pedalin’ all over the ring. You got a poisonous wallop, 
and I don’t want you to sacrifice it to speed. I’ve saw 
dozens of guys which was natural hitters like you lose 


THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 317 

championships when they tried to become boxers. 
You can sock and you can take it—any further knowl¬ 
edge to a scrapper like you is a handicap!” 

Never the less I kept on training in my own way 
right up to the day of the fight, and I went into the 
ring with Martin determined to give him a boxing les¬ 
son and amaze the crowd with my science. The cold 
reception I got from the mob, mostly because they 
thought I had tried to avoid meeting Martin, only made 
me more determined to show them some sparring the 
like of which they had never witnessed before. 

Martin come out carefully at the bell, expecting my 
usual rush, but I surprised him and the customers by 
tripping around like a dancing master and letting him 
do the forcing. We exchanged a half dozen light taps, 
with Martin taking no chances, evidently fearing my 
pacifist tactics was a trick. He worked a wicked 
straight left that I couldn’t seem to solve, and before 
we have gone a minute I can see I am up against a 
master boxer which is making me look like a novice. 
The crowd hoots and howls for me to quit being yel¬ 
low and fight, but I continue to dance around Martin, 
occasionally shooting in short rights, most of which 
bounces harmlessly off his bent arms or shoulders. 
This fellow was a boxing fool and no mistake, and 
he’s getting more confident every second as the ex¬ 
pected avalanche of wallops fails to mow him down. 

The first round ended in Martin’s favor by a wide 
margin, though neither of us had did any real damage. 
The attendance is bitterly complaining and howling 
“Fake!” During the rest Nate tells me if I don’t quit 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


3 i 8 

clowning and tie into this baby he will walk out of the 
arena and leave me flat. 

Martin rushed in with a stinging left to the jaw 
at the beginning of the second frame, but I blocked a' 
light to the same place and made him change feet with 
a torrid left hook to the heart. After a short clinch 
we begin light sparring again, and again the crowd 
howls for action. Martin then missed an overhand 
right for the jaw, and, suddenly changing his boxing 
tactics, begins swinging them from all angles, evi¬ 
dently figuring to catch me by surprise by his sudden 
change of pace and probably knock me kicking. The 
crowd came to its feet with his flurry, and I was a busy 
young man for the next few seconds trying to keep on 
my feet. I still continue to box, and a right swing to 
the jaw buckled my knees under me. I tried to dive 
into a clinch till my head cleared, but Martin had me 
figured and swished over a terrific left swing that broke 
my nose at the bridge and covered me with gore just 
as the bell rang. 

The house was in a uproar as I slid into my stool, 
but they ain’t in half the uproar I’m in, and that’s a 
fact. In spite of all my precautions and the time I 
wasted studying a defense, this big banana has broke 
my nose and marked me for life! 

Before the echo of the bell has died out for Round 
Three, I am in Martin’s corner swinging both hands 
to the head. I have forgot they is such a thing as 
boxing in the book. I want to pulverize this baby and 
show the howling mob whether or not I’m yellow. 

Just to prove that I can take it, and am not adverse 


THE END OF A PERFECT FRAY 319 

to doing the same, I let Martin throw four punches at 
my head and jaw without a return. Then I set my¬ 
self and shot a left to the body and a right to the jaw. 
Martin crashed against the ropes and rebounded into 
another right I had started, which toppled him clean 
through the ropes out of the ring. Wow, you should 
of heard the crowd! 

Well, they was plenty of jack bet on Martin, and 
he’s shoved back into the ring by dozens of willing 
hands. The referee has reached “eight” when Martin 
struggles to a upright position with his back against 
the ropes. He’s out on his feet, and I don’t want to 
hit him, so I ask the referee to stop it. This kind- 
hearted official snarls for me to go on fighting, adding 
that the fact of Martin still being on his feet has prob¬ 
ably broke my heart. While I’m standing there argu¬ 
ing with him, with my hands at my side, Martin stum¬ 
bles up from in back of me and shoots a right at my 
head, knocking me flat. Then—the bell. 

Well, that foul blow of Martin’s removed my last 
scrupple about making him like it. I rushed across 
the ring at the gong for the fourth frame and stag¬ 
gered him with a left to the head. I then ducked a wild 
right haymaker and dug both gloves into his body, 
fighting him off with short inside rights when he tried 
desperately to clinch. On the break Martin caught 
me flush on the jaw with his right, but I had just about 
punched the steam out of this baby, and the blow didn’t 
even shake me up. I closed his left eye with a couple 
of well-timed rights, and then proceeded to beat him 
from pillar to post. Only by continual clinching did 


320 FIGHTING BLOOD 

Mr. Martin save himself from going out in that 
frame. 

Seeing their man had no chance, his seconds set up 
a cry of foul when I dropped him to his knees with a 
right to the stomach just before the gong. That punch 
was as clean as a baby’s heart, as most of the crowd 
knew. The referee is about to allow Martin’s claim of 
foul when Mr. Brock, who is sitting in a box with the 
chairman of the State Boxing Commission, butts in, 
and after a couple of minutes’ wrangling the boxing 
official orders the fight to go on, to the great joy of 
the crowd and the great sorrow of Jack Martin. When 
this fight first started, the mob was with Martin almost 
to a man, but in the last round, when he butted, ripped, 
heeled, and fouled me in every way known to the game, 
they are on their chairs bellering for me to knock him 
out. 

The end came one minute and twenty seconds after 
the bell for the fifth round. I come out to finish this 
bird, but run into a wild right which like to upset me. 
We clinched. I shot a hard right through a opening 
and Martin reeled back like a drunken man. “He’s 
going!” howls the mob. A left hook under the heart 
dropped him to one knee. He was too groggy to take 
a count and got up at “four.” I took my time and 
measured him with a light left. His head come up, 
and I threw a right flush to his jaw, sending him down 
and out. 

Thus endeth Jack Martin. 


ROUND ELEVEN 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 

Once upon a time there was a fellow which wrote 
slews of poetry and bounded around rejoicing in the 
tasty name of Jean La Fontaine. Among the many 
rare gems which rolled off the end of his busy pen was 
the following wise crack, 

“Nothing is so oppressive as a secret!” 

Jean said it. The more us human beings is told to 
keep something quiet, the more we want to tell the 
world about it. You know yourself that the best way 
to put a secret in general circulation is to whisper it to 
somebody with the request, “Don’t breathe a word of 
this to a soul!’’ The next day everybody but Little 
Red Riding Hood knows all about it and there’s no 
use of you getting sore, because if it was a secret, why 
did you tell anybody in the first place? 

Well, / am about to tell a secret which has been 
nestling in my manly bosom for quite a while. Me 
and Hurricane Ryan both swore we would never under 
no circumstances mention a word of this without the 
other’s consent, but Hurricane has released me from 


2 I 


321 


322 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


my oath. Hurricane Ryan ain’t heavyweight champion 
no more so he don’t care, yet that night in Mr. Brock’s 
garage—but I guess I better tell it all and be done 
with it! 

After I stopped Jack Martin, I again found I had 
practically fought myself out of a job. The only boys 
left in the light-heavyweight division that I ain’t al¬ 
ready slapped for a goal is boloneys that don’t know a 
straight left from the timekeeper. A bout between me 
and the entire lot of these babies wouldn’t draw sixty- 
two cents to the box office if they was allowed to come 
in with bats in their hands, so the promoters lay off me. 
This tickles Judy, which is still crazy to see me get out 
of the game and settle down as a solid business man, 
but it burns me up, because what’s the use of being 
a champion if you can’t work at it? Instead of being 
worth a possible half million to me, my title don’t 
mean nothing, on the account I get no chance to 
perform. 

Like Alexander the Great, my favorite character out 
of the big, thick Ancient History I got, I crave more 
worlds to conquer. So thinking matters over, I make 
up my mind that if I can’t get no light-heavies in there 
with me I’ll fight a heavy weight and be done with it. 
But I got no desire to try wading through a lot of these 
two-hundred-pound clowns, any one of which might 
lean their weight on me in a clinch and make me round- 
shouldered. I want the heavyweight champion, or 
nobody! 

So I startle my playmates, the sport writers and even 
Nate, by quietly slipping over to the New York news- 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 323 

paper offices and challenging Hurricane Ryan, world’s 
heavyweight champion, to a fracas with his crown at 
stake. As I hold the title in the light-heavyweight 
division, I figure a battle between two champions 
should draw like a poultice. 

My challenge is printed in the morning papers and 
the evening editions comes out with Hurricane Ryan’s 
answer through his pilot, Curley Oliver, who just 
laughs me off. He claims Hurricane Ryan is ready 
and willing to defend his title against a legitimate 
contender at all times, but he’s got no desire to spank 
babies. The big stiff. Oliver calls attention to the fact 
that Hurricane Ryan is almost thirty pounds heavier 
and four inches taller than me and has a equally big 
advantage in every important measurement of a 
fighter. In fact, says this dizzy nutmeg, the difference 
in size between me and Hurricane Ryan is about like 
the one between Dempsey and Carpentier and he don’t 
think the public wants to see a duplicate of that “fight.” 
Of course, that was all applesauce. What made the 
heavyweight champion unpartial to climbing through 
the ropes with me was my record—30 knockouts in 
34 fights! 

But the sport writers seems to side with Hurricane 
Ryan and with the exception of a few which like me 
personally, why, they refuse to take my challenge with 
a straight face. Even Nate and Kelly tells me to lay 
off Ryan. 

“He’s a little too big and burly for us, kid,” says 
Nate. “And, another thing, Ryan is nobody’s fool. 
I see him take Jim Lang a couple of months ago and 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


3^4 

you know how fast this Lang is and how he can sock. 
Well, in the third round, Ryan hit Lang on the jaw 
so hard he throwed Lang’s knee out of joint!” 

“And Lang outweighed Ryan a good fifteen 
pounds!” chimes in Knockout Kelly. “If I was you, 
Gale, I’d forget about Hurricane Ryan, because in a 
scuffle with that baby the best you can look for is the 
worst of it, no foolin’! A champ is a chump to go out 
of his class into a heavier one for a fight. You know 
the old sayin’, ‘A good big man can always beat a good 
little man!’ Outside of the time you and Frankie Jack- 
son hit the mat together, you never been knocked cold 
in your life—why go out of your way to get kayoed?” 

“Listen, you couple of crape hangers,” I says. “I’m 
going to keep riding Hurricane Ryan till he agrees to 
battle me and if you think I’m kidding you’re crazy! 
To hear you dumbells talk you’d think I was a push¬ 
over. You don’t see none of ’em get up and laugh 
when I sock ’em, do you? Well, Ryan won’t get up 
either. I seen him step a couple of times and I think 
he’s a mark for a right hook —my right hook! After 
I smack him a couple of times him being bigger than 
me won’t mean anything, because he’ll be bent over to 
my size if not lower, and don’t think he won’t. Any¬ 
ways, even if he knocks me kicking I’ll still be light- 
heavyweight champ, because Ryan can’t make the 
weight in that class. If I stop him I’ll be world’s 
heavyweight champion—I’ll hold two titles, think of 
that!” 

“Well,” says Nate, “I think you’re cuckoo myself, 
but I will say this much—when a Gale and a Hurricane 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 


3^5 


meet there should be some battle whilst it lasts!” 

There was all of that. 

While I am waiting for this big blah Ryan to give 
me a tumble, I spend considerable hours stalling around 
Ajariah Stubbs’s drug store, as usual. To keep my 
brain limbered up for the time when I am going to 
startle the business world, I’m still dressing his win¬ 
dows and trying to arrange his stock in a attractive way 
for him. When I was back of his fountain I was al¬ 
ways thinking up new drinks and giving them fancy 
names to attract the trade. The bozo he’s got working 
for him now is just a dumbell which is simply inter¬ 
ested in the fact that at six o’clock he gets off. He’ll 
be a soda jerk all his life. 

Anyways, one day I am back in the syrup room, 
pottering around with the different flavors and trying 
my hand at making a batch of chocolate syrup, a thing 
at which I was very fluent once upon a time, when a 
idea forces its way to the top of my head. I make up 
my mind I will invent a new drink—some unalcoholic 
thirst-quencher which will sweep the nation like jazz 
did. I figure that right then when even its worst 
enemies was beginning to take Prohibition seriously, 
there would be millions in a drink of some kind which 
would present the drinker with a mild kick without 
making him want to climb flagpoles and sing quartette 
by himself. A drink which would be relished by 
everybody in the family from baby to grandpop. Make 
it tasty, Volsteady, give it a catchy name, put it in a 
nobby bottle and sell it for, say, ten cents the copy and 
then just sit back and watch the dimes roll in! 


326 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


The more I think about this, the more frantic I get 
to put it across and during the next few days I ruined 
most of old Ajariah’s stock of syrups. Still, I ain’t 
charging him nothing for my sales stimulating stunts, 
so it’s even Stephen. I mixed chocolate, orange and 
coffee, strawberry with paregoric and rootbeer, 
throwed lemon, sweet spirits of niter and peach to¬ 
gether, tried out a medley of pineapple, aromatic spirits 
of ammonia, pepsin bismuth and yeast—well, figure 
out some more combinations for yourself. I tried 
everything! 

Judy, Knockout Kelly and Spence Brock, follow my 
experiments with the greatest of interest. They think 
I can do anything and that it’s only a question of hours 
before I’ll assemble a mixure of flavors into a fasci¬ 
nating drink which will make me as rich and famous 
as custard. But there’s one jazzbo in Drew City which 
sneers at my efforts to lift myself out of the ruck and 
get somewheres. That’s Rags Dempster. Rags pours 
sarcastical laughs on my attempts to invent a national 
drink and freely predicts a brilliant failure for me. 
Still I kept mixing and pouring and pouring and mix¬ 
ing. However, after either 85 or 250 combinations of 
syrups fails to do anything more startling than make 
me and my friends deadly sick, I give up my experi¬ 
ments for the time being. For one thing, I have got to 
wait till me and my volunteer tasters recovers. But 
I wasn’t through with this idea yet by no means. I was 
going to compose a drink which would make the 
country wild and make me the same as a millionaire 
or die in the attempt 1 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 327 


About this time, Drew City was treated to the choice 
scandal of the year and for all I know the natives are 
talking about it yet. The New York papers comes in 
as usual one day on the 4:15 local and within a half a 
hour you couldn’t of bought one in town for $54,000. 
The reason is a picture of Rags Dempster’s father on 
the front page and above it in great, big, black letters 
it says the following: 

POLICE SEEK J. RODNEY DEMPSTER 
$7,000,000 EMBEZZLEMENT CHARGED! 

Underneath is about nine columns explaining 
matters and there was plenty to explain about that 
seven million bucks! According to the newspapers, 
this mock turtle has dropped not only his own bank¬ 
roll, and Dempster was worth important money, but he 
has ruined all the investors and his carpet factory by 
losing their jack in Wall Street. Seven million dollars 
—sweet mamma, the mere mention of that much sugar 
gives me a thrill! One thing I must say for old man 
Dempster, he was no petty larceny crook, was he? 

Judge Tuckerman got hooked for $5,000 in the 
crash and poor old Ajariah Stubbs had $6,500 of his 
dough amputated through Mr. J. Rodney Dempster 
being a bum guesser on the stock market. The carpet 
mill shuts down for the second time in its history— 
this time, for good. About a thousand people is 
throwed out of work and if Rags’s father ever does 
show up in Drew City again he won’t have a China- 


328 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


man’s chance—they’ll string him up from the nearest 
lamp-post sure as there’s a Hindu in Hindustan! 

Well, as the results of his male parent’s nasty trick, 
Rags becomes about as popular in Drew City as a fan 
salesman would be at the North Pole. The fast bunch 
from the college, which was supposed to be his friends 
when he was circulating money with both hands, falls 
away from him like leaves off a tree in Autumn and 
the rest of the populace duck him the same as if he’s a 
mad dog. Personally, I felt sorry for Rags, I did for 
a fact, in spite of him fouling me, time and time again. 
Just look at the jam he was in. His old man was in 
Europe, trying to hide from all the coppers in the 
world, he himself was flat broke and unequipped to 
earn any dough because he’d never had to work at 
nothing and even his imported car and the palace his 
family lived in was put up at auction so’s the creditors 
can get a small piece of their money back. 

I think Life itself is about the most interesting 
movie any of us will ever see—a rip roaring comedy 
drama with the plot changing all the time. We’re 
stars in it today and supers tomorrow. Six years ago 
I was a bum and Rags was a millionaire’s son. Now 
I got a chance at a million and Rags is the tramp. 
While I been battling my ways to fame and fortune, 
this bird has went steadily down. I don’t particularly 
gloat over that, I think Rags got a tough break. Take 
any kid, give him a weekly drawing account like a bank 
president’s, let him loaf through college and then sud¬ 
denly take everything away from him and throw him 
out on his own. If the kid makes good after that, it’s 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 329 

his fault not yours, but you can take the credit if he 
goes wrong! When I think of Rags I don’t regret hav¬ 
ing missed college as much as I used to regret it. Hav¬ 
ing to struggle for the mere right to live since I been 
eight years old has learned me more than I’d ever get 
in a class room. I’m used to bad breaks as well as good 
ones, and when things go all wrong I don’t crumple 
up—I hop to it and make ’em all right. Nothing un¬ 
expected can ever happen to me, because I expect any¬ 
thing ! 

I meet Rags on the street one day some time after 
the news about his father reached Drew City. As a 
rule I used to pass by him without as much as a nod, 
because I liked him the same way I like to get run 
over, but now that he’s down and out I didn’t want to 
kick him, I wanted to help him up to his feet. Live and 
let live is my motto and it’s as good a motto as any. 
So I stopped him and held out my hand. 

“Rags,” I says, “I certainly was sorry to hear about 
your father. I bet it’s all a mistake and when he gets 
back from Europe he’ll probably explain everything 
and there’ll be nothing to it. In the meanwhile, let’s 
forget our private war. If a few hundred—or more— 
will help you out till you hit your stride again, I’ll be 
tickled to loan you whatever you think you need.” 

The look of surprise which come over his face when 
I stopped him gives way to a sneer. He looks me up 
and down like I’m something the cat dragged in on a 
rainy night and my outstretched hand could of been 
in Nicarauga as far as he’s concerned. 

“Mind your own affairs, will you?” he snarls, “What 


330 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


my father does is no concern of yours. I need no 
assistance from an illiterate pugilist—I’ll have more 
money within a year than you’ll ever see! I already 
have something you’ll never have—brains and breed¬ 
ing. Step aside and allow me to pass!” 

I stepped aside—in fact, I stepped right out of his 
life. What else would you want me to do after that? 

Well, my next imitation is to attend the auction of 
the Dempster mansion “and contents,” as it says on the 
handbills which Constabule Watson tacks all over 
town. There’s a big mob there, but most of ’em come 
to kid instead of bid. Rags’s big English car finally 
goes under the hammer for a song. I forget the name 
of the song. Mrs. Willcox gets a swell set of wicker 
porch furniture for fifty bucks. Judy picked up a lot 
of potted plants for almost nothing and Knockout 
Kelly got a marble lawn bench for thirty-five fish that 
you couldn’t duplicate in New York under a couple 
of hundred and which he needs like he needs two more 
ears. I stood apart and just watched the entertainment 
till Nate starts to ride me. He says this is the chance 
of a lifetime to get something for nothing and I am a 
sap for not sitting in. At this point the auctioneer and 
the sheriff has a conference. The auctioneer then raps 
for silence and when he gets something like it he gives 
the crowd a fearful bawling out. Among other com¬ 
pliments, he says they are the cheapest bunch of tight¬ 
wads he ever met in his life and he’s been in the game 
twenty years. As the result of their five and ten cent 
bidding on articles of “priceless value,” he goes on, he 
has decided to stop auctioning off the furnishings one 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 331 


by one. Instead, he will sell the house and its con¬ 
tents complete to the highest bidder, starting the thing 
at $50,000. One-third of the purchase price must be 
laid down at once, but the lucky buyer will be allowed 
ninety days on the balance. 

“Well, come on, snap into it!” bawls the auctioneer. 
“Who bids fifty thousand?” 

“I will!” I holler, without hardly realizing what 
I’m saying. 

A hundred necks crane and twist to look at me and 
Nate views me with alarm. 

“Fifty-one thousand!” comes a weak voice from the 
crowd. 

“Fifty-five thousand!” I yell. I suppose I am crazy 
to do this, as the bridge jumper says, but why bother 
with thousand dollar bids and stay there all day? 

My rival wilts. 

“Anybody else?” shrieks the auctioneer. “Going at 
fifty-five thousand—an outrage, if they ever was one! 
Going at fifty-five thousand. Oh, what a crime! Do 
I hear fifty-six thousand? No? May Heaven for¬ 
give you ,—I can’t! Sold at fifty-five thousand 
dollars!” 

And I am the owner of Rags Dempster’s house. 

What is the idea of a fellow like me sinking $55,000, 
in real estate you may say. The idea is that I have just 
about made up my mind that I am going to spend the 
rest of my days and nights, too, in Drew City and when 
I get wed and settled down, why, naturally enough I 
will want a house to live in. I couldn’t duplicate the 
Dempster castle for three times what I paid for it and 


33 2 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


should something happen to my marriage plans I figure 
I can always sell it at a profit. Then again, there is 
something fascinating to me about owning the home 
of a guy which once sneeringly offered me a twelve- 
d^>llar a week job in his father’s carpet factory and 
which has been stabbing me in the back for six years. 
So all in all, I’m highly delighted with my purchase, 
and, strangely enough, Judy seems highly delighted, 
too. 

I bring Nate and Knockout Kelly over to my hand¬ 
some new home as my guests, but we make arrange¬ 
ments to take all our meals at Mrs. Willcox’s. There 
ain’t no cook in the world can even grease a pan with 
her and a fighter’s food is as important to him as his 
hands. I give Nate and Kayo a beautiful suit of rooms 
on the top floor with their own private bath and the 
etc. and if you think they didn’t like it, you’re foolish. 
Kayo says my house would make Buckingham Palace 
look like a livery stable. He’s especially hopped up 
about the piano down in the music room. My talented 
manager fingers a cruel ivory and Kayo throats a 
wicked song, so we was sure of ample entertainment on 
the cold rainy nights. Nate claims the piano is an up¬ 
right, but Kayo says Nate’s dizzy, because if the piano 
is upright what was it doing in the house of J. Rodney 
Dempster? 

Both Judy and her mother come over and helped me 
rearrange this and that about the house at my urgent 
request. We made quite the few alterations, because 
strange as it may seem my ideas—on a lot of things— 
is a little bit different than old man Dempster’s. 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 333 


Judy got all excited over helping me fix up the house 
and as she’s got elegant taste, why, in a couple of days 
it ain’t just a house it’s a beautiful home. It lacked 
just one thing to make it perfect—Judy! I followed 
her round from room to room, holding pictures an' 4 
draperies for her to hang, moving chairs and tables 
where she tells me to put ’em and all that kind of 
thing, but believe me I ain’t thinking about no interior 
decorating—I’m thinking about her. I think what a 
wonderful thing it would be if we were married and 
she was in my house to stay. She’s up on a ladder 
fixing the velvet curtains between the dining room and 
the parlor and I just can’t take my eyes off her. Why, 
if Judy Willcox was to stand beside Niagara Falls, 
nobody would give Niagara a tumble! I get a terrible 
kick just looking at this girl and that’s a positive fact. 
Well, the more I look the more I wish and the more I 
wish the more I make up my mind I will ask her to 
wed me and be done with it! So I collect up all my 
courage, get up, cough a few times and begin. 

“Judy,” I says, in a kind of weak voice. “I would 
like to ask you a favor.” 

She turns around and smiles down at me, still hold¬ 
ing the curtains. 

“Anything, Gale,” she says. “What is it?” 

Standing there gazing into her clear blue eyes I de¬ 
cided to change the favor I intended to ask her, because 
I was always afraid that if I acted like I was dying of 
love she would give me the air. She often said herself 
that what she loathed was these mushy, lovelorn girls 
or boys. So like usual, I get double pneumonia of the 


334 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


feet. I had plenty nerve in the ring, but in front of 
this vision I was as faint-hearted as a rabbit. So I 
jerked myself back to normalcy immediately. 

“Eh—will you help me hang those ringside pictures 
of me in the parlor?” I says, for want of something to 
ask now that I have let the marriage proposition go by 
the board. 

“Why, Gale!” says Judy, dropping the curtains in 
amazement. “Surely you wouldn’t dream of putting 
those fearful fighting pictures in that room! And it’s 
not a parlor, Gale, it’s the drawing room.” 

“There’s one room will be useless to me, then,” I 
says. “For I can’t draw a straight line. However, 
I don’t see nothing wrong in hanging those fight pic¬ 
tures there, Judy. Some of them is scenes from my 
greatest battles. I’m kind of proud of ’em and I 
want my visitors to see ’em.” 

“Put them in your den, then,” says Judy. “You just 
hold these curtains for me, Gale, and I’ll do the deco¬ 
rating.” She starts to hang the curtains again, but 
suddenly she turns to me and says with a odd smile, 
“Perhaps I’m taking too much for granted—after all, 
it is your home.” 

“I sure wish it was yours, too, Judy!” I busts out. 

You should of saw how red her face gets before 
she turns away. She says nothing and I suppose I 
missed the chance of a lifetime by not asking her then 
and there can she see her way clear to marry me. But 
when I think if she ever says “No!” I will become a 
maniac, so why take the chance just yet of hearing that 
word which will poison me? So while I hung fire, 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 335 


Judy gives the curtain a final pat and gets down from 
the ladder. She says she’s got to hurry home and help 
her mother get dinner. 

“Will you come back for a while after dinner and 
help me fix up that drawing room, Judy?” I says, in 
desperation. 

“Of course, for a little while,” she says, “if you 
want me to.” 

“If I want you to?” I says, advancing the bit 
closer. “Judy, I don’t want you never to be away 
from me! I-” 

“Gale—I—really, I must run, I’m late now!” she 
butts in. 

But why does she look away from me and blush 
again? I don’t know. I know she beat it and after 
she left, why, that swell drawing room with all the 
statues and classy furniture and rugs a yard thick, was 
just a empty empty room to me! 

The best part of my new residence to me was the 
library and that’s where I put in most of my time. It 
had every kind of book in the world in it and I just 
read the print off ’em, no fooling. Books is one thing 
I can’t get enough of and I go on regular reading jags, 
you might say, taking my fill of fiction, history, essays, 
poetry, biography, science, etc. etc. and even etc. Of 
course, there’s a whole lot of these books which is miles 
over my head, being filled with thoughts and words 
which is beyond me. So I hired what is known as a 
tooter. This was a nice old man by the name of Prof. 
Simms which used to be one of Judy’s teachers at 
Drew City Prep, but in spite of all his knowledge he 



FIGHTING BLOOD 


336 

had failed to learn how to keep from getting elderly 
and these cold-hearted birds at the prep school give 
him the air when he gets over the age limit. The poor 
old professor is a bit dazed by this treatment, as he 
ain’t got a nickel and nowheres to turn for help, so I 
solved his problem and mine, too, by putting him on 
my payroll as my own private professor and having 
him come to my house to live. 

About a month after I have settled down in my 
handsome mansion, I lost one of my guests through 
matrimony. That was no less than Knockout Kelly, 
which in spite of Nate’s frantic objections hauls off 
and weds Mary Ballinger. Nate tried everything but 
poisoning the principals in a effort to stop these wed¬ 
ding bells from ringing out, because lie knew it meant 
Kayo’s permanent retirement as a box fighter. But 
Nate might as well of tried to stop the Atlantic Ocean 
from being wet. Mary and Kayo was wildly in love 
with each other and nothing else was of no importance 
to either of ’em. They are living in a swell little 
cottage which Kayo bought in Drew City and they got 
presents enough to more than furnish it. I was best 
man at the wedding and Judy was bridesmaid, and 
right then and there I made up my mind that the next 
marriage me and Judy graced with our presence we 
would be the parties of the first and second parts and 
not just innocent bystanders! 

Well, as tlie time goes on my continual challenging 
of Hurricane Ryan for a battle over any distance he 
cares to name gets me the attention of nearly all the 
sport writers and they begin to ride him heavy. The 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 337 


heavyweight champion is whiling away his idle hours 
in vaudeville at heavy wages and he don’t seem anxious 
to defend his title against me or nobody else. How¬ 
ever, when the old applause at the end of his turn be¬ 
gins to fall off as the result of his stalling tactics, why, 
he begins to realize he has got to make some warlike 
move if he wants to keep his popularity. So he sud¬ 
denly agrees to fight me, out of a clear sky. This gets 
me, Nate and the promoters all excited, till we hear the 
amount Ryan demands for his guarantee. Then we are 
fit to be tied. All Hurricane Ryan wants for risking 
his crown in a tussle with me is a scant $200,000 and 
he might as well of asked for $200,000,000 and be 
done with it! The promoters’ interest in the bout flick¬ 
ers out like a candle, even the biggest gamblers amongst 
them turning it down cold. They figure that with the 
fifty or sixty thousand they would have to give me, 
the purse would break the man who put the fight on, 
as the vast difference in size between me and Ryan 
would kill all chance of drawing the record crowd 
which would be necessary to make it pay. In despera¬ 
tion I agreed to take a percentage of the gate receipts, 
but Ryan wouldn’t and matters come to a standstill 
once again. Then when I have give up all hope of ever 
meeting Hurricane Ryan in a ring or even at a dance, 
I get my chance. It was Spence Brock’s father which 
come to the rescue like he often has before. 

A few days after the newspapers has printed the 
ridiculous terms on which Hurricane Ryan will accept 
my challenge, Spence picks me up downtown in his 
car and asks me to run out to his house, as his father 


338 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


wants to talk to me before he sails for a trip around 
the world on his yacht. On the ways out, Spence re¬ 
marks that his father has made this excursion a half 
dozen times and he’s looking forward to this one with 
about as much excitement as a aviator would look 
forward to a ride on a Ferris Wheel. He has got to 
get away from his business cares and the etc. every now 
and again at the request of his doctor, but this voyage 
is just a habit with him and that’s all. Spence says he 
bets his father would give a gigantic slice of his bank¬ 
roll for a new thrill. Well—he did! 

When we get to his house, Mr. Brock wants to know 
when me and Hurricane Ryan is going to cease this 
newspaper battling and get down to business in a ring, 
as that’s one scuffle he wants to view before he takes 
his boat ride. I told him I would take pleasure in fur¬ 
nishing him with the date of the setto if I only knew 
it myself, but from the way the heavyweight champion 
has been stalling me along, I personally think the fight 
will take place the same day roller skating on the ocean 
becomes the national sport. I says about the only way 
I’ll ever get Hurricane Ryan into a ring with me will 
be if the battle-ground is the top of Mt. Everest, where 
there will be nobody around to see me knock him dead. 

Mr. Brock smiles and then looks thoughtful for a 
minute. 

“You think Ryan would be willing to fight you if 
there were no spectators present?” he asks me after a 
minute, giving me a short, odd look. 

“Oh, he might take a chance, sir,” I admits. “But a 
tout without spectators would be a bout without gate 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 339 

receipts and a fellow who fights for nothing is not no 
fighter, sir—he’s a maniac!” 

This time Mr. Brock laughs outright, but there’s a 
strange gleam in his eye and he still seems to be think¬ 
ing seriously over the thing. 

“But what if someone—some individual would 
finance such a fight, provided he could be the only 
spectatorf Surely, Ryan wouldn’t object to a single 
witness, would he?” he asks me. 

“No, I don’t think he’d squawk about a bare one fail 
seeing him knocked out, sir,” I says, still in a kidding 
way, “but who in the name of Jersey City would 
spend more than a quarter of a million to see two 
fellows say it with boxing gloves ?” 

“I would!” he says, sitting forward in his chair and 
watching me close. 

“You—you’re joking, sir!” I gasp. 

“You’re wrong!” he says, very brisk. “I am not 
in the habit of joking about the expenditure of two 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars! For years I have 
been casting about for a substitute to take the place of 
this infernal ocean trip, which ceased to thrill me after 
the first one. I agree with my physicians that I need 
a tonic at about this time of the year, but we do not 
agree as to the proper ingredients of the tonic. By 
putting on this fight—an event I wouldn’t miss seeing 
for worlds—I would save the time I’d waste on a 
round-the-world-trip, give you your chance to win the 
highest honors in your profession, and provide myself 
with a super-thrill! Imagine being the only witness to 
a battle between two champions—two of the greatest 


340 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


boxers in the ring today fighting to a decisive result for 
my sole pleasure! Why, boy, Nero himself would have 
rushed joyously from his gladiators and chariot races 
to witness a spectacle like that!” 

And I wish you could of saw how excited he is. 

“But, what—how will you manage to—” I begin. 

“Young man,” he interrupts, “busy yourself with 
getting into proper condition for the fight of your 
career and leave the details to me! I will personally 
pay Hurricane Ryan the two hundred thousand he 
demands, but you must speculate with me. You say 
you are certain you can defeat the heavyweight cham¬ 
pion under any conditions. I read a statement by you 
the other day to the effect that you would almost be 
willing to fight him for nothing. Very well, if you win 
I will pay you fifty thousand dollars—if you lose, you 
will get nothing but the thrashing for your pains! 
Come now, what do you say?” 

“What are the other conditions, sir?” I says, kind 
of in a trance. 

“There are but two conditions,” says Mr. Brock. 
“One, that there will be no spectators at this bout but 
myself—the other, that the fight is not to be limited to 
any stipulated number of rounds. It must be to a finish!” 

Just a glance at his grim face is all I need to show 
me he’s in dead earnest. I got up and shook his hand. 
/ was in dead earnest, too. 

“Mr. Brock, I accept your offer with pleasure,” I 
says. “And I will take even more pleasure in knock¬ 
ing Hurricane Ryan for a Peruvian demi-tasse, for 
your further enjoyment!” 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 341 

I tell Nate about things that night and we nearly 
come to fistycuffs ourselves, on the account of his in¬ 
ability to believe me. When I finally convince him 
Em on the up and up, why, he laughs himself sick. He 
claims that Mr. Brock’s layout is the buffalo’s beard 
and a fool and his money is soon divorced. So I says 
if Mr. Brock is such a fool, where did he get all them 
millions of his. That slows Nate to a walk. 

I immediately start to condition myself for Ryan 
and as this is to be a finish fight, believe me I get some 
good heavies to ready me. This melee may go one 
round or one hundred and I don’t want to risk not 
being able to take it. Mr. Brock’s agents present the 
heavyweight champ and his pilot with their proposi¬ 
tion and at first they can’t see it with a telescope. They 
know who Mr. Brock is and that he’s good for the 
guarantee, all right, but it’s just become a habit with 
them to refuse to fight me and that’s all there is to it. 
Fnally, Ryan’s manager agrees to Mr. Brock’s terms 
—provided he can add one of his own. He insists that 
the result of the bout be kept a absolute secret, no 
matter which one of us wins! 

For awhile, neither me, Nate, or Mr. Brock can 
figure out what the big idea is. Then we all agree that 
the crafty manager of the world’s heavyweight cham¬ 
pion has sold himself the thought that maybe I may 
turn out to be a tougher egg than they figure. I may 
give Ryan a lot of trouble—I may even take him. They 
are leaving nothing to accident. If I do win I can’t 
claim the title, if everybody connected with the brawl 
is sworn to secrecy! 


342 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Well, I’m convinced I’m Ryan’s master at marbles, 
pinochle or box fighting. I’m also convinced he’ll 
never fight me publicly, so I agree to his weird demand. 
The whole thing appeals to my imagination and fight¬ 
ing blood. If I lose, I’m sure of a terrible pasting 
without being paid a nickel for taking it. But if I win. 
I’ll get fifty thousand fish and the priceless satisfaction 
of having whipped the heavyweight champion of the 
world in a fight to a finish! 

While me and Hurricane Ryan is training for our 
little debate with all kinds of precautions being took 
to keep everything under cover, Rags Dempster begins 
to show signs of having staged a remarkable come¬ 
back, as far as money matters is concerned. He breaks 
out with a sporty new car, leases a swell old Colonial 
mansion in the richest part of Drew City, and gener¬ 
ally begins strutting his stuff till the whole burg begins 
to whisper and wonder. This goes on for about a 
month, during which the wild parties at his house 
makes Rags the talk of the town—and it ain’t the 
kind of talk I would prefer for myself, no fooling. 
Rags is the local mystery, which is solved when the 
coppers swoop down on his house one night in the 
midst of the usual festivities and collar him for, what 
do you think? Sssh—bootlegging! 

Spence Brock meets me the day Rags’s case comes 
up and he tells me he’s heard they are going to sock it 
to Rags plenty. Not only to make a example of him 
as a bootlegger, but because two-thirds of the town 
hates Rags from his derby to his overshoes. His 
father’s failure and the closing down of the carpet 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 343 


mill is still open wounds and now that they got the 
son by the tail they are going to see at least justice 
done, if not more. Me and Spence is in Judge Tuck- 
erman’s court when the matter of Rags is reached. He 
has hired Lem Garfield, and Lem steps forward to 
plead for him. Lem got nowheres, for the first time 
since he’s lawyered for a prisoner in the judge’s court. 
When the judge hears the mere mention of the name 
“Dempster,” why, he immediately remembers how he 
got stung by the carpet mill failure and he blew up 
like a powder mill. I doubt if he even heard the charge. 
He just gives Rags one terrible look over his cheaters 
and holds him for the grand jury. 

So that was that. 

Nothing much more happened till the night of the 
big fight, but plenty happened then! Mr. Brock had 
a regulation ring put up in the middle of his great 
big garage on the grounds of his estate and then he 
had the whole building fenced off by a ten-foot high 
boarding so’s to keep out any peeping Toms. Had 
Drew City any idea of what was going to take place 
in Mr. Brock’s garage that evening, you couldn’t of 
kept the mob away with machine guns! There was a 
big cluster of high-powered electric lights over the 
ring itself, but only a few little dim ones around the 
rest of the place and with the whispered mutterings 
and hardly the sound of a footfall, instead of the usual 
roar of a fight-crazed mob, it sure was uncanny. It 
was more like going to be executed than going to box, 
and I almost felt like looking around the shadowy 
inside of the big garage for a scaffold. Hurricane 


344 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Ryan, getting into his ring togs at the far end of the 
building, seems to be more interested in giving Mr. 
Brock the once over than he is in me. Well, no won¬ 
der. A guy which is willing to spend two hundred and 
fifty thousand bucks to see a fight all by himself is 
something to look at! 

Besides Mr. Brock, which makes up the entire audi¬ 
ence, there is just me and Hurricane Ryan, our hand¬ 
lers—three for each of us—a referee, and a timekeeper. 
Eleven people in all at a battle for the heavyweight 
championship of the world and ten of the low-voiced 
eleven is connected with the mill as principals or of¬ 
ficials. There’s one for the book, now ain’t it? 

The total absence of the howling, lidding crowd and 
the general noisy excitement I had alvays heard before 
is the first thing which gets on my nerves. There’s 
something about that deathly quiet—at Mr. Brock’s 
strict orders—which just ain’t right, that’s all! The 
first time I ever fought in a ring the noise of the mob 
sent me a million miles up in the air and made broad 
jumpers out of all my nerves—now, because there ain’t 
any noise at all I feel almost the same way! I can 
see the atmosphere’s getting on Hurricane Ryan’s 
nerves, too, from the way he licks his lips and keeps 
his eyes mostly on the floor as he sits in his cor¬ 
ner. Now and then he shoots a quick glance over 
at me, probably to see how I’m taking things and 
I bet in another minute we might almost of got up 
and sympathized with each other over this awful 
quiet! 

Well, there ain’t much time wasted in fiddling 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 345 


around, as there is no challengers to introduce from 
the ring and no flashlights to be took. Just before we 
shook hands I got a good look at Hurricane Ryan’s 
waist line and the bulge of fat over his belt give me 
a lot of needed comfort. Hurricane looks like his idea 
of readying himself for this battle was to get himself 
a shave and a haircut. He figured me just another 
set-up, only that and nothing more. 

Mr. Brock settles back in his ringside seat—the 
only seat there—with a fat cigar between his lips and 
a smile of perfect satisfaction on his face. He’s set 
to see a battle that may break all records in the number 
of rounds fought and produce a new world’s champion. 
It went just six rounds and as for producing a new 
world’s champion, well- 

From the first punch to the last, this fight was one 
which should go down in history with the Battle of the 
Marne, Gettysburg, Bunker Hill and Waterloo. Both 
me and Hurricane Ryan has one idea—to win with a 
single blow if possible. Therefore, every punch was 
meant for a haymaker. So sensational was the milling 
that it drove Mr. Brock to within two inches of in¬ 
sanity and it was often necessary between rounds for 
the handlers to attend to him as well as me and Ryan 
—holding the old ammonia under his nose and waving 
towels over him till he come back to life. At other 
times, he’d sit there licking his lips like one of them 
old time Roman emperors—tickled silly that he’s see¬ 
ing one of the goriest fights since Cain stopped Abel 
and that his jack has enabled him to put the shambles 
on for his enjoyment alone! Unfortunately, I didn’t 



346 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


have time to pay more attention to him. I was busy 
—with Hurricane Ryan. 

At the opening bell, Ryan rushed me to the ropes 
and begin roughing it, using his terrible weight ad¬ 
vantage to bull me around the ring while shooting in 
short lefts and rights at close quarters. Well, it’s a 
cinch that my place is away from this kind of treat¬ 
ment and I get away by popping him with two stiff 
right uppercuts which his face told me shook him up. 
Then I turn my attentions to that roll of fat at his 
waistline, upon instructions from Nate, which he was 
warned not to repeat by the conscientious referee. I 
swung a left to the wind and followed that with a hard 
right to the same place without a return. A left chop 
to the ear started the Burgundy flowing freely and 
Ryan backs away looking worried. So far, I am mak¬ 
ing a show of this big stiff and this gets me a trifle too 
ambitious. I blocked a light left and tore in with a 
well meant right hook to the heart. The punch fell 
short and Ryan put Mr. Brock in a fainting condition 
by flooring me with a nasty left to the jaw. However, 
the blow was only a glancing one and after taking a 
count of seven I was up again, full of fight. Ryan 
missed a left uppercut and paid for his poor timing 
when I reached his sore ear with a overhand right. He 
grabbed me around the waist and we are clinched in 
mid-ring at the bell. Ryan’s round, by the margin of 
that lucky knockdown. 

Round two was a trifle slower, for the reasons that 
both me and Ryan had about made up our minds that 
a one-punch knockout would have to wait till we had 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 347 


felt each other out more. Besides, we’re both tired 
from the terrific pace in the first round. The heavy¬ 
weight champ used a right swing almost entirely, 
while I relied on what Nate told me during the rest— 
a straight left and a right hook, mostly to the body, 
then back pedal and try to tire out Ryan by making 
him chase me. Ryan slipped and fell just before the 
gong, but was up in a instant. I didn’t cop him, which 
I could when he was off balance, because that ain’t the 
way I fight. Hurricane acknowledged this by grinning 
and touching gloves with me and that’s what we was 
doing at the bell. This frame was even all around. 

Ryan surprised me with a change of pace in the 
third round and only missed winning the fight then 
and there by a miracle. I was the miracle. He rushed 
me around the ring swinging both hands viciously and 
a terrific right to the head sent me spinning along the 
ropes, goofy and entering Queer Street. I got one 
glance at Nate’s pale face and Mr. Brock jumping up 
and down and then I hit the canvas on my haunches 
from a short left hook to the button. I managed to 
stumble up in time to beat the count, only to run into 
a torrid left to the mouth that painted me a deep red 
and dropped me to my knees. Once more I arose 
before the fatal ten and this time I floundered into a 
life-saving clinch by pure dumb luck. I don’t know 
what it’s all about and I hung on till the referee 
dragged me away bodily. But that clinch had made 
a new man of me. Hurricane Ryan was tired and 
puffing like a porpoise from his own exertions during 
that flurry, while I had got my second wind and my 


348 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


brain was clearing of the cobwebs put there by them 
two knockdowns. I stepped in close and dug both 
gloves into that pudgy, heaving stomach of his and 
you could hear him grunt in Betelgeuse. Then I swung 
a long overhand right to his face that covered both of 
us with Hurricane’s gore. He tried a feeble straight 
left which I had no trouble ducking. He pawed at me 
blindly and I shot a straight right to his eye, cutting 
it to the bone. A wicked smash to the neck sent Ryan 
staggering around like a drunken man and made Mr. 
Brock act like one. The groggy heavyweight champ 
tried to dive into a clinch, but I had other plans for 
him. I set myself, took careful aim and threw my 
right at his chin. Down he goes like a poled ox for the 
first time in the fight, with a crash that sent up dust 
from the canvas. He barely got to his feet at nine and 
with a knockout win staring me in the face I throwed 
gloves at him till he must of thought it was raining 
leather! 

Then came the accident which almost cost me the 
fight for the second time in that boisterous third round. 
Hurricane Ryan is against the ropes in his own corner, 
weaving back and forth like a hula dancer. I tossed a 
right at his jaw with everything I got behind it. As 
the punch starts, his head sways to one side and my 
glove swishes past and cracked against a ring post. I 
thought I had broke my hand in two, I did for a fact. 
The gong rings just then and when I run to my comer, 
Nate finds I have busted my right thumb, making my 
best hand practically useless! 

Well, although I managed to keep Ryan from find- 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 349 

ing out the shape my right is in, I took one proper 
pasting in the fourth and fifth rounds. With only 
one hand I could hit hard with, and that one which 1 
had never before depended on as heavy artillery, Em 
pretty badly handicapped. Only Ryan’s poor con¬ 
dition and the cuffing I had handed him in the third 
frame saved me. He seems to get stronger towards 
the end of the fourth, but I kept him cautious by 
making a bluff of swinging my right every time he gets 
too ambitious. He didn’t like that right of mine and 
he took no pains to hide it. I also bluffed him now 
and then with a shift—standing first with my left and 
then with my right hand extended. A left uppercut 
that hit me in the Adam’s apple in the middle of the 
fifth like to choke me to death and near the bell I went 
down for a count of eight from two terrible smashes 
to the body. I tincanned around the ring from then 
on to the bell, which was a welcome chime to me. So 
far, Ryan had the first, fourth and fifth rounds by a 
good margin, with the second even and only the third 
in my favor. Yet I’m still the freshest of the two, 
having youth and perfect condition on my side. 

Nate and I made up our minds that I was to stake 
everything on a flurry at the beginning of the sixth 
frame, leading with my right and standing the pain, in 
order to get a opening for a left to the jaw. The plan 
was to work heavy on Hurricane’s scant hoard of wind 
and it worked to perfection. Right off the bat, Ryan 
smacked me with a right to the head. He looked sur¬ 
prised when I didn’t fall and even more surprised 
when I sunk my left to the wrist in his body. I then 


350 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


feinted with my right and again shot my left to his 
mid-section and Hurricane dropped to one knee. Ryan 
had a great deal of trouble this time getting to his feet 
and it was plain to even his handlers that he was 
through when he did struggle upright. Mr. Brock is 
jumping around like a madman, punching away at a 
imaginery fighter and too hoarse to yell. I looked 
Ryan over calmly, walked up to him and brought down 
his guard with a left to his heart. He sagged back on 
his heels, dropping his gloves slowly and I hooked the 
same left to the jaw. Ryan fell on his face, twitched 
and laid still. He was out four minutes and I have 
knocked the world’s heavyweight champion cold! 

Well, the minute the referee finished counting Ryan 
out, what does Mr. Brock do but haul off and faint 
dead away from excitement! Nate and Kayo Kelly 
leaps out of the ring and they had their work cut out 
for them bringing him around. No more than he opens 
his eyes when there’s a commotion in the attic over the 
garage, and, here comes the laugh— Spence, Judge 
Tuckerman and Lem Garfield tumble headlong down 
into the ring! They been up there all the time and 
seen it all. Honest, I thought Mr. Brock would die 
of apoplexy. It slowly dawns on him that his scheme 
to be the only witness to his personally conducted fight 
has flopped and for the next few minutes he ain’t fit 
to be at large! He raves and he rants and he stamps 
around, red in the face and shaking his firsts at his un¬ 
welcome guests. Judge Tuckerman and Lem Gar¬ 
field looks longingly at the door, while Spence tries 
to quiet his father down with explanations of how he 


WHEN GALE AND HURRICANE MEET 351 


smuggled them in because they was crazy to see me 
win. Spence had heard me and his father planning the 
thing and he just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. At 
last, Mr. Brock happens to look around to where they 
are still working over Hurricane Ryan and he slowly 
cools off while a broad smile makes its appearance on 
his face. He slaps me on the back and grabs at my 
bloody gloves. 

“By Gad, boy, you did it!” he hollers. “You 
whipped the world’s heavyweight champion in as great 
a battle as I’ve seen in twenty-five years ! I knew you’d 
win. I don’t pick losers!” 

That’s about all, except when we get outside the 
garage, sneaking our way like burglars through the 
night to our cars, who do we bump into but Sam 
Howe, editor of the Drew City “Sentinel.” Sam’s got 
a flashlight, snooping around and when he sees us he 
throws it full in our faces with a cackle of joy. 

“By Caesar!” says Sam. “I knew there was suthin’ 
big goin’ on here! I knew that there fence wasn’t 
built around the garage for nuthin’. Been a big fight, 
hey? Well, let’s have the details for the ‘Sentinel’!” 

Right away Hurricane Ryan gets nervous and pulls 
me back of a tree. 

“Remember our contract!” he whispers hoarsely in 
my ear. “We swore nobody would tell nobody who 
win the fight. You can’t put this scrap in the papers !” 

I remembered that part of it, all right, to my sorrow. 
But—a oath’s a oath. I stepped up to Sam and mo¬ 
tioned Hurricane to keep out of the range of his flash¬ 
light. 


35 2 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


“Don’t get all steamed up over Nothing, Sam,” I says, 
forcing a grin. “I just been working out for my next 
fight, that’s all.” 

Sam squints at Hurricane. 

“Workin’ out with the heavyweight champeen?” 
snorts Sam. “Think I’m a fule? It’s been a humdinger 
of a fight, I kin see by your faces. Lookit his nose!” 

Then I get a real idea—I do, now and then. 

“Don’t make me laugh!” I snort. “That ain’t the 
heavyweight champ no more than I’m Columbus. 
Look again and see for yourself!” 

Hurricane Ryan’s features is puffed and swelled 
till I bet he’d of had to be introduced to his own 
mother. I figure poor Sam has never seen nothing but 
a newspaper picture of him anyways. Like I hoped, 
Sam looks doubtful. He’s made too many mistakes 
in the Drew City “Sentinel” to want to make another on 
purpose. Nobody likes to be laughed at, but pro¬ 
fessional comedians. 

“You’ll all swear that’s not the heavyweight cham¬ 
peen of the world?” he says finally, pointing to Hurri¬ 
cane Ryan. 

Well, that ain’t a hard matter to do. I have just 
knocked Ryan out, so even if I ain’t in a position to 
tell the world about it, I’m morally heavyweight 
champion myself, ain’t I? Sure! 

I nudge the others and we all raise our hands and 
solemnly swear. Hurricane Ryan looks at me, sees 
what’s in my mind and with a grim smile he raises his 
right hand too! 

A good loser at that, now wasn’t he? 


ROUND TWELVE 

CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 

When all is said and done there is really only two 
things which a box-fighter must have—a wallop and a 
heart. Speed, ring generalship and a mastery of hooks, 
feints and jabs is all great things to bring into the ring 
with you, but the ability to hit and the ability to take 
it is actual necessities in the life of a fighter. We’ve 
had many a champion with no other assets than these 
two, but there’s been few title-holders which didn’t 
possess both. Another thing, attempting to be a clever 
boxer has ruined many a ambitious boy with no talent 
at all for feinting and jabbing, but which might of 
slammed his way to a title by roundhouse swings alone. 
Like Battling Long done, for the example. 

After I knock out Hurricane Ryan, Nate signs me 
to fight this Battling Long fifteen rounds to a decision 
in the land of Jersey City. I am guaranteed forty 
thousand gulden, with the privilege of taking forty-five 
per cent of the gross. Long has got to content himself 
with a paltry fifteen thousand flat and the only guaran¬ 
tee he gets is one from Nate that will serve him up 
the pasting of his life. Being light-heavyweight cham¬ 
pion of the world, I think the man which can take me 
will be born the day the Gulf of Mexico turns into 


23 


353 


354 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


grape juice. Thinking that way is what makes ex¬ 
champions. John L. Sullivan figured himself the 
clam’s garters, wouldn’t train for Corbett and was a 
mark for the slim, cool-headed Gentleman Jim. In 
turn, the handsome James gazed upon Bob Fitzimmons 
with contempt and Ruby Robert smacked him much 
colder than zero. Fitz thought Jefferies a laugh, but 
the boiler-manicuring cave man just grunted and re¬ 
moved Fritz from his crown. Jack Johnson giggled 
himself hysterical at Jess Willard’s ponderous swings 
and clumsy rushes at Havana, till Jessica’s driven 
cuckoo by Johnson’s kidding in the clinches, knocked 
Lil Arthur for a row of Mongolian whipped cream 
containers. Willard, a champion, figured Dempsey 
a set-up. In fact, just before he climbed through the 
ropes for the shambles at Toledo, Jess remarked that 
he hoped he wouldn’t have to beat Dempsey up so 
badly that the bout would kill boxing. And then— 
Oy, Yoi! Well, I thought this Battling Long was just 
another boloney and why go through a gruelling train¬ 
ing grind for a boloney? What happened? This: 

I have never give up the idea of becoming a liquid 
Edison by inventing a drink which will goal the world 
and while I’m getting in condition for Battling Long 
I can’t seem to keep my mind on the manly art of as¬ 
sault and battery. The training grind is more mono¬ 
tonous than monotony itself. Up at six a. m., road 
work, punch the bag, pull the weights, throw the medi¬ 
cine ball, step a couple of rounds apiece with half a 
dozen sparring partners, shadow box, army setting up 
exercises, shower, rubdown, bed between eight-thirty 


CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 


355 


and nine. You do that day after day and week after 
week with a grouchy, cold-eyed manager holding a 
watch over you and see how long you can keep from 
going cuckoo! 

One night I am laying awake in bed thinking over 
this and that and wondering just where I will wind up, 
when the idea of composing this drink begins ham¬ 
mering at my head again. I just can’t get rid of this 
thought and go to sleep. Instead, I find myself turn¬ 
ing over various combinations of flavors in my mind 
till finally I get so excited about the thing that although 
it’s after midnight I jump up and dress and sneak 
quietly out of the house without disturbing nobody. 
If Nate knew I was prowling around at this hour of 
the morning with a important fight only a few weeks 
off he’d be fit to be tied! I’m bound for the syrup room 
of Ajariah Stubbs’s drug store, because I got a sudden 
hunch that this night I’ll concoct a beverage which will 
be drank around the world! I got a set of keys which 
Ajariah give me so’s I could come and go whenever I 
pleased and I let myself in, clear off a table, set out 
test tubes, vials, jars of syrups and bottles of drugs, 
a mortar and pestle, etc., and get down to business. 

Like before, the first dozen or more experiments 
results in nothing but punishment for my stomach. I 
am getting a little sleepy and a whole lot discouraged, 
when I take one more chance and mix up—well, let’s 
say it was four flavors, two extracts and a harmless 
drug. The formula is on file at Washington now and 
I’d rather you’d see it there. Anyhow, I taste this 
combination wdthout much hope that it’s going to be 


35 ^ 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


any more successful than the others I’ve tried, when 
lo and behold, as the Chinese says, it ain’t been down 
a minute when a pleasant glow spreads all over me. I 
ain’t sleepy no more, in fact, I’m so full of pep I’m 
satisfied that I could go out and ruin a dozen Battling 
Longs in the same ring! Thrilled to the core by the 
feeling that I’m standing on the brinks of a great dis¬ 
covery, I take a real good swallow of this stuff and 
let out a whoop of pure joy. I’ve done it at last—I 
have discovered a drink which will give the nation a 
kick without a headache! No habit-forming drugs, 
no alcohol, no artificial coloring, and yet it’s got a 
wallop like dynamite. The only thing is, it’s a trifle 
bitter, but I overcome that by adding a little simple 
syrup and then it’s the cat’s collar! When two glasses 
of this has rolled smoothly and deliciously past my 
pleasantly surprised tonsils, I realize that I have got a 
radium mine on my hands if this drink is properly ad¬ 
vertised and exploited. 

In the midst of my wild rejoicing I hear somebody 
rattling the knob of the back door. I think it’s prob¬ 
ably Ajariah and I rush to the door and flung it open, 
crazy to tell somebody what Tve just did. Well, it 
ain’t Ajariah, it’s no less than a very sleepy looking 
Nate Shapiro and he greets me with a decidedly angry 
glare. 

“What’s the big idea?” he growls, pulling out his 
watch. “It’s nearly three o’clock in the mornin’, is this 
givin’ me a square deal ?” 

“Giving you a square deal?” I says, a bit puzzled. 
“What do you mean?” 


CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 


357 


“What do you mean, what do I mean?” says Nate. 
“You ought to be in the midst of a nightmare in bed 
instead of fussin’ around this trap at this hour of the 
mornin’! Now you’ll be a dead man all day to-morrow 
and won’t be able to work out. That ain’t playin’ the 
game with me, kid. If this Long slaps you from 
under your title, you won’t get the money for your 
next fight and if you don’t get the money, where do I 
get off? You shouldn’t ought to be so selfish, Gale, 
you ought to remember that every time you take a 
lickin’ it hurts me!” 

“I’m sorry if it offends you when I get punched in 
the nose, Nate,” I says. “But I think I can promise 
that will never happen no more after my little debate 
with Battling Long. Unless I am greatly mistaken, 
that will be my last fight!” 

“Blah!” sneers Nate. “You’re dizzy! I’ve heard 
that stuff from you before, but-” 

“But this time it goes!” I butt in. “Nate, I have 
just fell into a thing which will make me a million 
bucks before I get through with it and if you don’t 
think it will you’re crazy!” 

“Listen,” says Nate, in open disgust. “If I didn’t 
know different I’d swear you was a hop-head, no 
foolin’. You got more ideas than Burbank. First 
thing you know you’ll get pinched for tryin’ to get 
blood out of a stone or somethin’. What are you doin’ 
in this joint, anyways?” 

For answer I poured out a glass full of my newly 
invented drink and handed it to him. Nate sniffs it 
and eyes me suspiciously. 



358 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


“Smells like it had authority,” he says, with a grin. 
“What is it?” 

“What do you care what is it?” I says. “Drink it 
and you’ll have the honor of being the first one to ever 
taste it, outside of its inventor!” 

Nate gives a grunt which don’t commit him one way 
or the other, but he takes a inquisitive sip from the 
glass. I watch him like a mother watches her first 
baby learning to walk! Suppose he don’t like it? Sup¬ 
pose this drink is a knockout only to me and the bunk 
to everybody else? Honest, I’m more nervous and 
anxious while Nate tastes that concoction than I was 
when I climbed through the ropes to fight Gunner 
Slade for the world’s light-heavyweight championship. 
My whole future is wrapped up in that glass which the 
hard boiled Nate holds in his hand as far as that part 
of it goes, and why shouldn’t I be nervous and 
anxious ? 

Well, I don’t have long to wait for the returns. 
The first sip Nate takes opens his eyes. He takes a 
healthy swig, smacks his lips and then drains the glass. 

“Warn!” he hollers. “Say—that’s the turtle’s bi¬ 
cycle ! What is it ?” 

The sleepiness and the grouchiness has disappeared 
like magic! 

“I ain’t got no name for it yet,” I says, tickled silly 
at the way it hit him. “I just this minute invented that 
drink, Nate—laugh that off!” 

“Don’t stand there arguin’ with me,” says Nate, 
holding out his empty glass. “Let’s have another shot 
of that stuff, but don’t let me catch you dr inkin’ none 


CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 


359 


of it—remember you’re readyin’ yourself for Battlin’ 
Long. As a trainin’ exercise, this egg stopped Kid 
Christopher at Philly last night in one round. It took 
you four to do the same trick. That’s somethin’ to 
think about, hey?” 

“No,” I says, “it ain’t. I never felt better in my 
life and I’ll lay this Long like a pavement! You’re a 
swell manager—instead of telling me I can lick the 
wide, wide world you’re always predicting I’m going to 
get knocked for a loop. It’s a good thing I got plenty 
of this moral and -don’t have to look to you for none. 
It’s as harmless as a day old infant. But I can’t give 
you no more till I mix some up.” 

“Till you mix some up?” says Nate. “What’s the 
idea?” 

“I told you I invented this drink, didn’t I, dumbell?” 
I says. 

Nate sits on the end of the table and looks at me 
with awe and admiration. 

“I thought you was kiddin’,” he says. “I think you 
are yet, but if you ain’t kiddin’, you got a money maker 
here which will make the mint look like it’s turnin’ out 
biscuits.” 

“It’s going to take plenty jack to properly launch 
this, Nate,” I says, after a minute. “I’ll have to go out 
and promote a company, probably, and sell stock and 

_ >i 

“I’ll take ten thousand bucks worth of stock in it 
right now!” interrupts Nate, banging his fist on the 
table. “We’ll canvass the town—no we won’t either, 
we’ll only let our pals in on this. Hey—mix up a 



360 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


couple more drinks of that stuff and we’ll dope a cam¬ 
paign right here and now which will raise enough pen¬ 
nies to set that drink before the public and make ’em 
cry for it!” 

And we did and they did. 

It was five in the morning when we let ourselves 
out of Ajariah Stubbs’s drug store and sneaked home, 
tired and sleepy but drunk with enthusiasm. 

“Kid,” says Nate to me before we turned in for a 
couple hours’ nap, “you’re brighter than Jackie Coogan 
and that’s a fact! But I suppose this drink you cooked 
up is goin’ to be the end of our partnership. You’ll 
make more money in less time with this punch than 
you will with the punch in your right hand. Then the 
next thing, you and Judy Willcox-” 

“Will get wed,—if I’m lucky!” I finish for him. 

“I hate to see that,” says Nate, shaking his head. 
“I hate to see it. As it stands now, you and Judy is 
just a couple of good friends—you get married and 
you’ll ruin all that. Marriage has busted up more 
friendships than anything else in the world!” 

Then I chased him. 

Well, late that same afternoon there is a important 
conference in the back of Stubbs’s drug store. Judy, 
Ajariah, Spence Brock, Nate and Knockout Kelly is 
all gathered round me, drinking this thing I’ve invented 
and to say they’re enthusiastic is a typical case of not 
telling the half of it. Ajariah, Spence, Nate and Kayo 
regard me with plain awe, but in Judy’s expression 
there is something more than that—something which 
makes my heart hop around like—like—well, whatever 



CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 361 


is in the habit of hopping around. We talk a lot about 
forming this company to put my drink on the market, 
about what we’ll call it, how much we’ll soak the thirsty 
public for a swallow of it and this, that and the other. 
Excitement reaches and passes fever heat and there’s 
plenty demands for me to make a speech, but I am no 
W. Jennings Bryan on a rostrum and that’s a fact. 
I’m satisfied that public speakers is born and not made, 
yet never the less I am going to take a course in orating 
along with my other studies, because now that I am set 
to be a big man in the business world I will doubtless 
have to bound around to banquets and the like making 
speeches and I don’t want to act like a clown when I 
do. 

The next day I am around to Stubbs’s drug store 
earlier than I ever was when I had to be there to jerk 
soda in days of yore. As far as my coming brush with 
Battling Long is concerned I got no more interest in 
it than I am interested in who killed cock robin. What 
I am interested in is mixing up a batch of my beau¬ 
teous beverage to have it all ready for the early trade 
in Ajariah’s store so’s to see how it gets across with 
the general public. No presidential candidate ever 
waited for the returns with half the interest with which 
/ waited for ’em that day in the old drug store. 

Well, long before noon my worst fears was realized 
—my drink was a howling success! 

I stood back of that fountain with Ajariah and his 
lieutenant soda man and watched a fair to middling 
fountain trade jump in a few hours to a business which 
would make a guy peddling rain storms in a drought 


362 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


look like rank failure. No matter what they asked for 
—pick-me-ups, headache removers, nerve steadiers or 
merely plain drinks—we invited 'em to try my new 
concoction and once they did that they just set there 
saying “Wow! What d’ye call that?” and shoving 
over their glasses and dimes for more. It was the 
greatest sale since the one Columbus took, no fooling! 

When me and Ajariah bottled it and it sold faster 
than we could ram in the corks and turn it out with 
our home-made bottling machinery, I knew my days 
of experimenting with myself was over. This liquid 
gold mine I had stumbled on had overnight removed 
the uncertainty and that terrible worry and pain in the 
heart which, young or old, you can’t escape if you’re 
an incurable addict of the drug which put the world 
over—ambition. It took me a long time to find my 
game—a long time of trying this and that and taking 
many a nasty fall along with my few short ascensions. 
But it was all worth it, for look what I got now. I 
been down, but I GET UP and there’s the secret of 
success in a nutshell. To add anything to that formula 
would be using rouge on a rose! 

Well, now that the success of my drink is as certain 
as cold weather in Alaska, the next step is getting a 
name for it and forming a company to sell it. Like I 
do on all important questions, I consult Judy about 
this, but before we get down to business, why, she lays 
her sweet little hand on my arm. Her beautiful face 
is troubled and these pulse-thumping eyes of hers is a 
bit moist, what I mean. 

“Gale,” she says, “now that you have found your- 


CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 363 

self at last and have a possible million awaiting you, 
are you going to—to leave Drew City?” And the 
anxious way she asks that sends my blood racing. 
There’s no use talking, I might of done everything 
else twice or more, but personally, I only been in love 
once! 

“No, Judy,” I says, “I am not. You couldn’t get 
me six inches away from this burg while—while you're 
in it! I-” 

“That wasn’t what I meant,” she butts in quickly, 
flushing. “But it does seem to me that you have 
fought out your whole life problem here in Drew City 
—coming here penniless, without friends, vague as 
to your ambitions, now you are a member of the Board 
of Trade, respected and admired by everyone and— 
why, Gale, I really believe at this moment you are the 
biggest thing in the town! I do not mean you wouldn’t 
have done as much in a large city, but, Gale, there are 
less temptations and more loyal friends in a small town 
and I know that has helped you. Perhaps I am selfish, 
but I love Drew City and I feel a sort of vicarious 
pride in the fact that you were developed here. I’d 
hate to see you go, now that the work of making you a 
successful man has been accomplished. But that of 
course is silly. You alone Gale were responsible for 
your success—your unswerving ambition and ‘fight¬ 
ing blood,’ as you phrase it, would have made you a 
success anywhere. I’m just a foolish girl, I know. 
You will be a man of affairs now and I suppose you’ll 
feel cramped here. You’re done a lot, Gale, a lot for 
yourself and a lot by example for the other boys here. 




3 6 4 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


I—I wish I’d had something to do with your rise, in¬ 
stead of just the pleasure of watching it.” 

“You had plenty to do with it, Judy,” I says, taking 
her hand. “If it hadn’t been for you I never would 
of stayed here. You been a inspiration and—and one 
of the goals I been shooting at. I got no intention of 
leaving Drew City, now or ever. I mean something 
here, got my home and my standing here and here I 
stay till doomsday! This drink of mine will be manu¬ 
factured right here and we’ll deal out jobs to the local 
talent and not to no outside help. I’ll give all my 
friends a chance to get in on the ground floor with 
stock in the company. Me, and everything connected 
with me, Judy, is going to be a strictly Drew City af¬ 
fair. Why as soon as I got my company floated and 
everything running smooth I’m even going to get mar¬ 
ried here!” 

If she blushed before, you should of saw her face 
then. 

“That’s certainly fine, Gale,” she says shyly. “And 
I wish you luck in—in all your ventures here. Have 
you thought of a name for your drink yet?” 

“Absolutely!” I says. “The name thought of itself 
you might say. In fact, I think if I’d had the name 
before I’d of invented the drink long ago!” 

“Now I am curious,” smiles Judy. “What is it?” 

“It’s Judy Punch!” I hollers, for the name had come 
to me in a flash while she was talking. “I claim that 
name’s the rabbit’s velocipede and inside of six months 
it will be on every tongue in the nation!” 

It was on every tongue in the nation inside of three 


CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 365 

months. I bet you’ve ordered it time and time again 
yourself, hey, and ain’t it a drink for your life? 

Well, I wasted no time in getting Lem Garfield to 
draw up papers in legal style and the first thing I know 
I am incorporated as “Gale Galen, Inc.” After trying 
twenty times without no luck at all to find out what the 
papers Lem drew up for me was all about I appointed 
him counsel for the company. The original stock¬ 
holders was me, Ajariah Stubbs, Judge Tuckerman, 
Nate and Knockout Kelly. Besides my stock, I am to 
get a certain royalty on every bottle of “Judy Punch” 
sold and I am likewise president of the firm. This is 
what I call sitting pretty and I don’t suppose nobody 
will give me no argument about that part of it. 

liowever, when we cast up accounts after the organ¬ 
ization of the company, the total amount of capital we 
have managed to excavate fails to give me a thrill. 
What I mean is, I realize I have got hold of something 
which don’t want to be ruined by piker methods. 
“Judy Punch” wants to be manufactured and bottled 
cn a heavy scale and we need a plant, machinery, a 
selling and promotion staff, and all this sort of thing, 
if my marvelous invention is going to mean anything. 
All this calls for important jack so I set forth after it 
like I set forth after anything else, with one idea fixed 
in my mind. The one idea is —get it! 

I was afraid things had been breaking a little too 
smooth for me, so I can’t say I was dumbfounded when 
the old fly in the ointment crops up. This was Rags 
Dempster. Rags had been duly tried and convicted 
of peddling the forbidden brew and the fine took every 


366 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


nickel he had in the wide wide world. Queer, ain’t it, 
that the drink Rags got mixed up with broke him and 
the drink I got mixed up with made me a fortune? 
Anyways, I run into him on the street shortly after he 
come out of the bootlegging thing, up against it and 
without a friend in Drew City. He stands in my way 
and greets me with a ugly snarl. Rags was drunk,— 
but with hate, not moonshine. 

“Well, you squealer,” he sneers. “How much did 
you get from the Revenue agents for informing on 
me?” 

“Rags, you’re crazy,” I says, keeping my head. 
Why smack him down? I figure he’s taking the long 
count now in more ways than one. “Even though you 
ain’t exactly infatuated with me, you know I wouldn’t 
do a thing like that. I ain’t built that way. I’m light- 
heavyweight champion, you never had a glove on in 
your life. If I wanted to do you a real injury, I’d 
make you step with me here and now for that crack 
you just made!” 

“Oh, no you wouldn’t,” he hisses, and shoves his 
right coat pocket forward. It’s got a gun in it. I can 
see the outlines of a automatic as plain, as day. “Oh, 
no you wouldn’t,” says Rags. “You make a step for¬ 
ward towards me and I’ll blow you up. I’m dying to 
do it, anyways!” 

“Rags,” I says, “I won’t cuff you because I’m sorry 
for you. You been your own worst enemy and evi¬ 
dently you’re determined to make the feud with your 
self a finish battle. But if I did want to cuff you, 
Rags, that gun wouldn’t stop me—remember that, in 


CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 367 

case you get rosey with me again! Now lay off acting 
like a villain in the movies. You got people looking at 
you.” 

Rags glances sharply across the street and sees a 
little group of innocent bystanders rapidly gathering. 
The hand in his coat pocket relaxes, but his set face 
don’t. Honest he glares at me with his beady eyes 
glittering till he looks more like a tiger than a human 
being. 

“Galen,” he says, in a hard voice, but it was steady 
enough, “Eli get you if it’s the last thing I do! If I 
do kill you, I’d just as soon it would be the last thing. 
I’d die happy!” 

Sounds like a play, don’t it? I know. That’s what 
/ thought, too. I think I grinned—I couldn’t help it, 
Rags sounded so dramatic. I didn’t think he’d ever 
have the nerve to shoot a rabbit, judging from his past 
performances. That just shows there’s plenty of 
things I don’t know. 

Well, I got Mr. Brock interested in the possibilities 
of “Judy Punch” and he came through for me as he 
has scores of times before. Came through to the ex¬ 
tent of loaning me enough jack to begin the manufac¬ 
ture of my drink the way it should be manufactured 
and he took my notes for the loan. He didn’t want 
nothing but my word, but I didn’t want to start in 
business without doing everything in a regular busi¬ 
ness-like manner. I never was strong on accepting 
favors, not because I hate myself, but because I hate 
to think I can’t stand on my own feet and operate 
from that point. 


3 68 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


Then I begin looking around Drew City for a plant 
suitable to my needs. I find it in a place which seems 
to of been picked not by me but by Fate. It’s no less 
than the deserted carpet factory, once owned by Rags 
Dempster’s father. The machinery had been sold to 
satisfy the creditors and it’s just one wonderful place 
for us to turn out “Judy Punch” in large and luscious 
quantities. One long lingering look all around it was 
enough for me—and I guess the fact of that factory 
being just what it was kind of helped me to make up 
my mind, too. I bought it, took down the big sign 
reading “Dempster & Company” which had stood there 
for years and put up one in its place which says, “Gale 
Galen, Inc.” 

I imagine the proudest second of my life was when I 
stood across the street from the factory and gazed 
fondly at my nice new sign. Just think, I now own 
the place where Rags once sneeringly offered me a 
job as a laborer in order to make me look small before 
Judy. When Rags and me started he had wealth and 
education at his disposal, I had poverty and ignorance. 
Now I had wealth and at least a working education, 
while Rags had merely the education. The difference 
that really counted though, was in the stuff which 
flowed through our veins. Dempster’s was water, 
mine was blood—fighting blood! What I’ve done is no 
more than what anybody with courage can do and a 
great deal less than many have done. So go on, do 
your stuff, sock the world whenever you can, take it 
when you have to and—you’ll be surprised! 

Well, having sorrowfully took me at my word that 


CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 369 

■ny fight with Battling Long would be my last, Nate 
was now busy trying to develop Two-Punch Jackson, 
the heavyweight, into a champion. He likewise had 
Tommy O’Ryan, the good middleweight, under his 
wing and figured on bounding over to Europe with ’em 
and fighting ’em against the best English and French 
boys in their class. The cables had been kind to Nate 
in the matter of offers, so all in all it looked like bon 
voyage. Knockout Kelly bought out my interest and 
Nate’s in the Judith Moving picture theatre, his wife 
going back to her old job at the ticket window, where 
she was a decided asset and she’d be a decided asset to 
any theatre, don’t think she wouldn’t. The future 
looked too busy for both me and Nate for us to keep a 
hand in a small town picture theatre and we was glad 
to cash in and step out. On the other hand, it was a 
perfect spot for Kayo. Spence Brock suddenly pleas¬ 
antly surprised both me and his father by declaring 
himself crazy to go to work at something connected 
with the putting across of “Judy Punch.” So I sent 
him to New York to open a branch office for us there 
and organize a sales crew. Even though Spence is a 
multi-millionaire’s son, that didn’t prevent me from 
telling him this was his chance to make good! 

Then come the tragedy which gloomed us all up for 
a while—a terrible unexpected shock which solved a 
old problem for me, but I can’t truthfully say I liked 
the way that problem was solved. It was a bit too 
terrible to gloat about, it was for a fact. Like all 
things which stun you at the time, it’s soon told. It 
happened like this: Besides superintending the manu- 


34 


370 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


facture of “Judy Punch/’ I was spending a lot of time 
doping advertising copy and framing what I hoped 
was interest-building letters to the jobbers and dealers. 
Judy was worth her weight in platinum in helping me 
do this, as she’s got some wonderful ideas and a busi¬ 
ness head as wise as it’s pretty, which is saying several 
mouthfuls. Well, we’d been doing most of this work 
in the office, of our plant, and this particular night we 
are working there late trying to smooth out a idea 
which had all the earmarks of being a wow when we 
got it properly set. It came out later at the inquest 
that it must of been about ten o’clock when this thing 
happened. They couldn’t prove the time by either me 
or Judy, as we was both too upset and sick with the 
tragedy of the whole business. Anyhow, I was just 
helping Judy on with her coat where there was a sharp 
report, the crash and jingle of broken glass in the win¬ 
dow opening into the factory and a wicked thud in 
the opposite wall. I felt a stinging in the top of my 
left ear and when I felt it my hand came away sticky 
and red. Judy give a little scream and run to me as I 
staggered back. I wasn’t hurt, but the sudden sensa¬ 
tion that somebody had tried to cook me in cold blood 
made me a bit ill in the region of the belt. I can’t say 
I’ve had that happen to me every day. 

“Stay here, Judy—I’ll get that guy!” I says quickly, 
pushing her behind a big book case out of harm’s 
way. 

“Gale—don’t—you’ll be killed!” she gasps, white as 
the teeth in a toothpowder ad. 

“Well I’ll be killed if I stay here, too,” I says, fore- 


CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 


37i 

ing a sickly grin. “If I go out maybe I can argue my 
boy friend out of it.” 

But I didn’t feel that funny at all. 

I sneaked out the door and in the dim night light 
over the stairs I see a figure, all scrunched down, but 
trying to see what he rung up with his shot at the office. 
So I crawled over on my hands and knees, making a 
wide circle and coming up in the rear of this unknown 
yellow killer. He heard me just as I jumped, but I 
was too shifty for him and grabbed the wrist of the 
hand which held the gun before he could fire again. 
He twisted and squirmed like a wildcat and I jolted 
him with a short right to the jaw. As his head flew 
up and he dropped to his knees I saw it was Rags 
Dempster. 

While I stood there dumbfounded and my next 
move made uncertain by surprise and disgust, Rags 
got to his feet and faced me, his features twisted with 
hate, still holding the gun. He aimed it at me point- 
blank and he wasn’t four feet away when he pulled the 
trigger. “Goodnight!” I tell myself and stiffen for the 
plunk of a bullet socking into my body. But poor 
Rags—and on account of what happened within a few 
minutes I say poor Rags even though he tried to kill 
me—poor Rags was out of luck. The trigger clicked 
harmlessly and the next instant I floored him. He 
rolled over and over, getting to his feet like a cat and 
staggered for the stairway. He’s still got the gun and 
I set sail after him. Up the stairs on the dead run 
comes Garth Hinkle, our nightwatchman, who’s heard 
the shot and the scuffle on the office floor. He tried to 


37 2 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


stop Rags and Rags knocks him flat with the butt of 
the gun. As Garth fell he yanked out his own gun and 
fired one shot from the ground. He couldn’t of aimed, 
he didn’t have time, but Rags dropped like a stone and 
he was a stone when we reached him—stone dead! 

The poor, poor kid—with all he done to me, Rags 
was unfortunate from birth in a great many ways. 
His mind was shaped all wrong and when the breaks 
went against him he didn’t have the stuff to fight back 
fair and you can’t foul Fate. Yet that was a tough 
way to go out. It broke us all up for quite a while. 

Well, when the day of my fight with Battling Long 
arrived it was almost a unexpected visitor. Putting 
“Judy Punch” on the market had gave me little time for 
training and I was miles from being in perfect condi¬ 
tion when I climbed through the ropes to defend my 
title for the last time. This ain’t a alibi—Long is a 
good boy, a sweet puncher and a fair fighter. For all 
I know, he might of been able to take me the best day 
I ever seen and as I don't know, why, let’s say maybe he 
would of and give him the credit. He’s still in the 
fight game and I ain’t. I got a trick worth two of that 
now! 

Before this melee had gone a round I had a sensation 
I never had before while I was box-fighting. I knew I 
was going to be trimmed! The thought even struck 
me that I might be knocked cold, for the first time 
since I pulled on a padded glove and stepped into the 
squared circle under the blinding lights to do my stuff. 
My wind was all shot to pieces and I run to my corner 
at the bell, blowing like a porpoise and my body a mass 


CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 


373 


of red welts from the jarring blows of Battling Long, 
who fighting a cool, heady fight, knew where I couldn’t 
take them that night no matter how punch-proof I 
used to be. Long’s handlers was almost hysterical with 
joy and acted like they couldn’t believe their eyes when 
he walked to his stool. Their wildest dreams looked 
about to come true and they wasn’t a bit backward in 
showing how they felt about it. But Long, with a 
world’s title staring him in the face, never blinked a 
eye. He just sit there cold, grim faced, tight-lipped 
and cruel, but only cruel because you see that was his 
business. He hadn’t a thing against me personally, 
but plenty against me walking out of that ring still 
holding the title. Well, that’s the game. 

After that for ten barbarous rounds, Long made a 
punching bag out of me. He took no reckless chances 
of rushing to land a quick knockout—he was fighting a 
champion and a champion is dangerous till he’s counted 
out, that’s what makes him a champ. So Long fought 
his battle at long range, taking advantage of my poor 
timing to chop me to pieces with a murderous left and 
jar me with occasional terrific rights to the body. 
Even though I was steadily on the receiving end of 
those wallops I couldn’t help but admire his plan of 
battle. My hat’s off to a artist in any line, and Battling 
Long knew his business! 

In the eleventh round, Nate begged me to let him 
toss in the sponge and save me from taking needless 
punishment. He knew I was through and for that 
matter it was no secret to me, but I’ve never had no 
fights stopped to save me before and I wasn’t going 


374 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


to begin then. Besides that’s a Hades of a way for a 
champion to lose, now ain’t it? I have slapped many 
a boy stiff myself and if it was my turn now, why, I 
was in there to take it. 

A punch by punch description of that battle would 
be monotonous and there was no pleasant memories 
connected with it for me. In the twelfth and thir¬ 
teenth Long battered me from pillar to post, putting 
more stuff on his swings, now that I was a set-up. 
Some of the customers even begin to walk out on us 
because the result looked like a foregone conclusion. 
I remember dully wondering how it would feel to get 
knocked stiff, a thing that never had happened to me 
before. Then I’d get desperate and lash out with both 
hands, once landing a wicked right on Long’s face 
that sent my friends howling and jumping on the 
chairs. But they was just flurries and Long soon 
learned to figure just when I was going to start ’em 
and he’d cover up and weather the storm. I guess I 
took almost as much punishment in my last battle as 
I did in my entire career up to then. I was down for 
short counts twice in the fourth, twice in the fifth, once 
in the seventh, three times in the eleventh, once again 
in the thirteenth—a total of nine times in a fifteen- 
round scuffle. Plenty! 

In the fourteenth round, Long, driven wild by his 
inability to stop me, opened up and began swinging ’em 
from the next block. This was my only chance and I 
went at it like a collie after a bone. The instant I 
felt him tiring from his own efforts I gathered the 
last remaining strength I had left and tied in to make 


CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 


375 


a grandstand finish. A right hook to the heart stag¬ 
gered Long a little after the bell and I followed that 
with a hard left to the head that spun him against the 
ropes and made the home-going spectators stop in the 
exits and scream their heads off. The highly amazed 
Long was then short with a right uppercut and I 
dropped him to one knee with the same punch in re¬ 
turn. Long took “Six” and come up with murder in 
his eye. He swung hard for both head and body and 
soon had me covering up. That was the end of my 
spurt. The bell found me hanging on for my life. 

In the fifteenth and last frame I took a cuffing which 
would of satisfied my worst enemy, I did for a fact! 
I don’t know what kept me upright. Long bombarded 
me with terrible lefts and rights to body and jaw, 
hanging me over the ropes once under a hurricane of 
blows which actually held me up they were coming so 
fast. I made as many returns as I could, but I was 
getting weaker and weaker and the bell was the most 
welcome sound I heard that evening. Two seconds 
more and I’d of been knocked as cold as a coroner’s case. 

So the decision and the light-heavyweight champion¬ 
ship of the world passed on to Battling Long on points. 
When you read that sort of a decision in the news¬ 
papers you get the idea that the fight was mere “box¬ 
ing exhibition” and not much to look at. If you had 
seen me after that brawl you would never get the idea 
again. 

A wild admirer of mine to the last, Mr. Brock comes 
plunging through the mob up to my corner where Nate 
and Kayo Kelly is trying to bring me back to life. 


376 


FIGHTING BLOOD 


He shouts that I was robbed of the decision and should 
of got no worse than a draw. But that wasn’t so and 
I told him it wasn’t. 

“No sir!” I says, shaking my weary head. “I wasn’t 
robbed. I got a square deal. Long would of knocked 
me kicking in another round. He’s a good tough boy 
and I hope he holds the title as long as I did.” 

When I was able I walked over to Long’s corner 
where he’s surrounded by a mob of guys eager to get 
even a nod from him. He’s the new king and I’m for¬ 
gotten. Such is life in the prize ring—or in any other 
ring. When Nate has cleared a way for me, I shook 
the new champion’s hand and wished him luck, remark¬ 
ing that I had sent many a boy home in the shape I’m 
in myself and now I can sympathize with them more 
fully. Battling Long just grins a happy grin. He’s 
beyond speech and I don’t blame him. I know the 
feeling. That title is worth around fifty thousand a 
fight, but —I got a million to shoot at! 

Spence mobbed me in the dressing room with the 
cheering news that “Judy Punch” has took New York 
by storm and he and his merry men has orders which 
will work our factory to capacity. He tells me my 
future is assured and asks me what in the name of 
Pleaven is the matter with my right eye. I says I have 
been in a fight. 

Then I heard Judy’s voice and her knock at the 
door. I throwed around my shoulders the bathrobe she 
give me on my nineteenth birthday, and which I have 
never went into a ring without since. Then I give 
Spence the air. 


CRIME, WOMEN AND LONG 


377 


“Oh, Gale,” says Judy. “I’m so glad about our— 
your—about ‘Judy Punch’ and so sorry you were hurt 
so badly and-” 

She’s all excited. I ain’t. 

“Listen,” I butt in. “I have stalled around for six 
years trying to get up enough nerve to ask you to wed 
me, Judy. I got everything I want but you and I’d give 
everything I got to get you! Just what do I have to do 
to make you marry me?” 

“Well,” whispers Judy, turning away shyly, her face 
a four alarm fire, “For one thing—you—you might 
ask me!” 

“Will you, Judy?” I gasped. 

“Yes, Gale I will!” she nods and from the depths 
of my shoulder she adds in a kind of muffled voice, “I 
think I would have at any time since you first come to 
mother’s boarding house!” 

“Much obliged,” I says. “Now . . . Oh . . . 
Judy . . .!” And day by day in every way we’re get¬ 
ting better and better! 


THE END 







The 

Sign of the Serpent 


By 

John Goodwin 


Do not begin The Sign of the Serpent 
unless you have time to see it through. 
It tells of a missing heir, a kidnapping, 
and a series of thrilling incidents on the 
sea-going yacht Windflower , Here are 
romance and adventure of the good old- 
fashioned kind,—not written for lovers of 
realism, but for those who still have a 
warm spot in their hearts for Treasure 
Island, 


G. P. Putnam’s Sons 

New York London 









NORTH 


BY 

JAMES B. HENDRYX 

A story of Alaska,—that it is by 
Hendryx stamps it as good. He has 
never failed to give an interesting 
plot; this one is both interesting and 
unusual, with the great Alaskan 
Sweepstakes, the famous dog-team 
race, as the exciting climax. 

You will like Burr MacShane and 
you will love Lou Gordon and her 
dogs. 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 


NEW YORK 


LONDON 




ALCATRAZ 


BY 

MAX BRAND 

Horses, a girl, guns, and an heroic 
puncher move through the pages of this 
story with delightful rapidity, overcoming 
a succession of convincing obstacles—and 
it only ends when the pretty lady finally 
lies with true romantic fervor in the 
proper pair of arms. This novel further 
enhances the author’s reputation in the 
field of Western romances. It rings 
true ! 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 

NEW YORK 


LONDON 





Po n j o la 

By 

Cynthia Stockley 

Ponjola is not merely another novel—it 
is another Stockley novel. To the readers 
of Poppy this carries real significance. In 
Ponjola , Miss Stockley has again caught 
the glamorous atmosphere of South Africa . 
Perhaps better than any other writer of 
today this author knows the secrets of the 
Dark Continent. Ponjola is the graphic 
tale of a girl who braved the depths of the 
African jungle to save the soul of the man 
who had saved hers. It is romance of the 
highest order. 


G. P. Putnam’s Sons 

New York London 





LIST OF FICTION 


5 


NOVELS BY 

MARY ELLEN CHASE 

THE GIRL FROM THE BIG HORN COUNTRY 

Cloth 12mo, illustrated by E. Farrington Elwell. 

$1.50 

“ ‘ The Girl from the Big Horn Country ’ tells how Virginia 
Hunter, a bright, breezy, frank-hearted ‘girl of the Golden 
West’ comes out of the Big Horn country of Wyoming to the 
old Bay State. Then things begin, when Virginia — who feels 
the joyous, exhilarating call of the Big Horn wilderness and 
the outdoor life — attempts to become acclimated and adopt 
good old New England ‘ ways.’ ” — Critic. 

VIRGINIA, OF ELK CREEK VALLEY 

Cloth 12mo, illustrated by E. Farrington Elwell. 

$1.50 

“ This story is. fascinating, alive with constantly new and 
fresh interests and every reader will enjoy the novel for its 
freshness, its novelty and its inspiring glimpses of life with 
nature.” — The Editor. 

NOVELS BY 

MRS. HENRY BACKUS 

THE CAREER OF DOCTOR WEAVER 

Cloth decorative, illustrated by William Van Dresser. 

$1.50 

“ High craftsmanship is the leading characteristic of this 
novel, which, like all good novels, is a love story abounding in 
real palpitant human interest. The most startling feature of 
the story is the way its author has torn aside the curtain and 
revealed certain phases of the relation between the medical pro¬ 
fession and society.” — Dr. Charles Reed in the Lancet Clinic. 

THE ROSE OF ROSES 

Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color. 

$1.50 

The author has achieved a thing unusual in developing a love 
story which adheres to conventions under unconventional cir¬ 
cumstances. 

“ Mrs. Backus’ novel is distinguished in the first place for its 
workmanship.” — Buffalo Evening News. 

A PLACE IN THE SUN 

Cloth decorative, illustrated by William Van Dresser. 

$1.50 

“ A novel of more than usual meaning.” — Detroit Free Press. 

“ A stirring story of America of to-day, which will be enjoyed 
by young people with the tingle of youth in their veins.” — 
Zion’s Herald, Boston. 




6* 


THE PAGE COMPANY'S 


NOVELS BY 

MARGARET R. PIPER 

SYLVIA’S EXPERIMENT: The Cheerful Book 

T rade “ Mark 

Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a 

painting by Z. P. Nikolaki $1.50 

“ An atmosphere of good spirits pervades the book; the 
humor that now and then flashes across the page is entirely 
natural, and the characters are well individualized.” — Boston 
Post. 

“ It has all the merits of a bright, clever style with plenty 
of action and humor.” — Western Trade Journal, Chicago, 111. 

SYLVIA OF THE HILL TOP: The Second Cheerful 

Book Trade-Mark 

Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a 

painting by Gene Pressler $1.50 

“ There is a world of human nature and neighborhood con¬ 
tentment and quaint quiet humor in Margaret R. Piper’s second 
book of good cheer.” — Philadelphia North American. 

“ The bright story is told with freshness and humor, and the 
experiment is one that will appeal to the imagination of all to 
whom the festival of Christmas is dear.” — Boston Herald, Bos¬ 
ton, Mass. 

“Sylvia proves practically that she is a messenger of joy to 
humanity.” — The Post Express, Rochester, N. Y. 

SYLVIA ARDEN DECIDES: The Third Cheerful 

Book Trade Mark 

Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a 

painting by Haskell Coffin $1.50 

“ It is excellently well done and unusually interesting. The 
incidents follow one another in rapid succession and are kept 
up to the right pitch of interest.” — N. Y. American. 

“ Its ease of style, its rapidity, its interest from page to page, 
are admirable ; and it shows that inimitable power —■ the story¬ 
teller’s gift of verisimilitude. Its sureness and clearness are 
excellent, and its portraiture clear and pleasing.” — The Reader. 

“ It is an extremely well told story, made up of interesting 
situations and the doings of life-like people, and you will find 
it very easy to follow the fortunes of the different characters 
through its varied scenes.” — Boston Herald. 


L BFe'3] 
















































































